The loner...Part 2

My mom had tried her best to make sense of what was happening with her daughter. She tried to determine what the underlying reason could be for me wanting to be on my own. More than concern of anything else for me, it was an exercise on her part to make sure that she was not responsible for who I was. Was it because Dad had left us that I insisted on not talking to anyone? Was it possible that she might be a bitter single mom and so I had retreated into my shell? Was it because I was embarrassed of her that I refused to go anywhere with her? Was it because I was an only child, that I never mingled with anyone?..Was it because?...the list was endless.

I would listen to the items on the list time and again when she'd get miserable thinking I was miserable and would start lamenting on what she had done wrong to deserve this. I would just stare vacantly in space and that would infuriate her more and the list would get longer. Invariably it would end in her tears and with me walking out, not because I was uncomfortable in any way that she was crying, but mostly because either I would need a drink or would need to use the bathroom.

Years later, when she fell extremely sick she apologized to me. I gave her the vacant stare and she fell back sobbing.

"What have I ever done to you?" she managed between the sobs.
"Nothing mom." I replied.

She stopped sobbing and looked at me increduosly. That was the first ever time I had acknowledged her question which had been hurled at me in various formats almost every other day.

"Then why...."
"It's who I am mom and it has got nothing to do with you!"

She sighed. She fell back. I never heard her repeat the drama ever again! She died a few days later.

When you are around someone for so long - almost all your life - you tend to start missing having them around(at least that is what I was led to believe), even if you never really loved or got along with them. I waited for that feeling to hit me - it never did. I looked around the apartment we had shared for so many years. I forced myself to look at the chair she would sit and listen to classical music. I don't know what feeling I sought, but it was definitely not the one that came over me. A surge of relief that I no longer had to be around her brooding presence. I was glad she was gone. I was glad to be by myself - finally!

After the party at the Rien's my mom had a grand idea - that of throwing a party of our own. I was just nine at that time, so though I tried my hardest to avert the crisis, she heard nothing of it and put me through the torture of greeting a dozen kids accompanied by their parents. My head was spinning as she made me thank eacn one of them when they were leaving. I almost passed out, but she held me strong. I never forgave her for that. She never did it to me again. She stopped trying after I threw up all over the floor that day!

There was this girl at school. An ugly, gawky looking thing. Since no on one seemed to be interested in being her friend, she turned her attention towards me, the only other friendless girl around! She was a stubborn little thing if there was one and was quite intent on becoming my 'best friend' as she put it. I punched her in the face when she said that. She was back the next day with a band-aid on her nose, grinning - showing her uneven teeth - "Well if not best friends, we could just be friends!". I punched her in the same spot again. She did not bother me after that.

But I had to pay the price for my aggression. From being a mousy little thing who minded her own business, I had morphed into a variety of different things. Some said I was a witch, some said I was abused, some said I was a psycho, some even said I had murdered my dad when I was 3! I didn't care..whatever the reason they left me alone and that is what mattered. I was free of the constant fun they would poke at me. If I had only known, I would've punched someone way earlier.

One thing I learned very early in life is that you control how you want your life to be. True, destiny pays a part - but if you are disciplined about what you want and never swerve out of the way - you will get it. As I cooked dinner that day - that is exactly how I felt. I watched the omelette puff up all bright red and yellow. I did not like the green stuff in it - and so there was no green stuff in it. This is how I wanted my life to be. Just the way I wanted it to be. Not the way someone else wanted it to be.

No one ever understood that. I was always treated like an abnormal person who had issues. No one could ever understand that it was the way I wanted things to be. That I loved being on my own, that being around other people tired the hell out of me - so much so that I was paranoid about being around people. They bored me no end with their oh so cute and happy lives, or I cant survive with/without my spouse lives or my kids are so smart lives. It seemed like an endless cycle. I would think I could categorize people into 4 to 5 categories and almost everyone would fit into one of these categories. Pretty mindless to be involved in the same vicious never ending drama of other people's lives! Instead I preferred to be on my own - do what interested me - not do what did not interest me and for that I was labeled a loner! I didn't mind as long as the loner was left alone!

Though I would have been as happy had I belonged to the cave man era wherein you could just go into a cave and live there (which I long to do even now), the reality was much different and I could not not pay attention to it for long. I had to make a life of my own. Passing school had been like walking on cake - the colorful stories that were touted as facts by those around me made life that much more interesting. I could be happy and secure in the knowledge that I was not as bad as they wanted me to be. Just more so!

"Want to get a coffee?"

I looked up from the book. This was the reason, I had wanted to check out the book, but the librarian had quoted some stupid rule that did not allow me to take the book home. So I had reluctantly settled in clutching the book. The thing I hate about libraries are that they seem more like a place for hospital records of dead patients rather than anything else. I would maybe spend not more than 10 minutes in checking out books and would be out of there in a flash. But when it was a question of the book that I had wanted to read for ages, I could not do that. So I sat there against my better judgement and had started reading.

As I had expected I was interrupted. When I looked up I saw the most beautiful brown eyes smiling at me.
"Coffee?" Yes, you could call those eyes coffee too. For the first time in my life I did not feel like punching the day lights out of someone who seemed to want my company!

(to be continued)