Childhood
Open Letter to 13-year-old Me!
Don’t feel bad about the things others did to you. You were just a kid.
Dear 13-years-old-me,
You were the elder child. However, you never felt like you were a child. I completely understand now why it was hard for you to make friends at school and in the neighbourhood.
Social butterflies are glamorized in our society. Actually, after being a part of a social group at university. I don’t feel like a social person. It’s not what fills my cup, it drains.
Never mind, not everyone is the same and not everyone should be the same. I am glad that I finally agreed to be my person. Occasional socializing is a good way of having some human connection but doing it back to back without getting some alone time is not for me. I realized later, that having friends is good but not forcing yourself to have friends.
As a kid, I never felt bad for being alone. I rejoiced.
When I stepped ahead with age and became a teenager, I felt quite alien around people and I started looking for social validation. Yes, I got a group of people for accompaniment. After which, I realized that it was not my slice of cake.
Anything which gives you peace and makes you feel alive is better than anything.
People come and go. It happens every day without us realizing it. Suppose we start to make them our whole life instead of part of our life. Life gets complicated. People aren’t toys you played with as a child. Just like you are not. You can’t be what everybody expects you to be. In the same way, people also can’t be a different person just because you like them better if they act a different way. If you can’t accept them for what they have to offer you, reject and find some other people who match the energy you are looking for.
Not everything is black and white. Life has colours you can never see. And there are colours only you can see.
Dear little me, you were young and naive. You still have your whole life forward to live and learn. Don’t consistently feel bad for not knowing something. You will acquire it in the course of it.
Similarly, don’t feel bad for not knowing what they all know. Everyone has a unique journey and own pace.
They also don’t know other things that you know because you both have walked different paths.
You do what interests you. It would be so foolish of you to walk the other path just because your acquaintances are moving in that direction. You need to lead yourself in a way that brings you joy and happiness.
Just because you shared the common class doesn’t mean you guys have everything similar. Everyone’s different. You’ll find people with the same ambitions and goals as your education and spot in life niche it down.
Only focusing on academic validation is not worth it. I don’t mean you shouldn’t focus on it. You should. What I mean is you need to learn socializing, sports, and other things in life.
It’s easier to learn things as a kid than as an adult. Adults theorize everything before heading toward them. Whereas kids take the risk easily.
See, it’s easy for teenagers to sneak out, jump in the pool or do any other risky tasks just because their friends challenged them to do it. And they don’t want to look like someone shy and back away from hard tasks. They want to prove to everyone that they can do anything. In the process, they learn it.
It is better to learn than to prove to others that you are omniscient. Because we are not. You need to learn from your friends and your friends from you. It’s the cycle that’s necessary more than anything.
Dear 13-year-old-me, I love you and the direction you’ve shown me. I am always doing everything to make you feel a little more alive every day.
