All my life, from kindergarten, to college, to even now, I've always been a bit of an outsider. An oddball. You know, people wouldn't pick me to be on their dodgeball teams, invite me to parties, that sort of thing. I don't even know what it was, if I looked too much like a nerd, if I talked too much like one. I remember thinking to myself often, "maybe people are just naturally averse to me." Most of the time, I just kind of accepted that. I didn't especially like being a loner, as the name would suggest it could get very lonesome, but after a while I just got used to being on my own. Relying on me, and only me. When last year rolled around, though, it only got worse. I made a few discoveries about myself that year. Who I was, who I liked, all those realizations came to me very fast, and with very terrible timing. Working a dead-end job as a cashier at the local Get-A-Gas, barely being able to pay my bills, I didn't have time to think about all that. And when I got home and could think about it, my thoughts tended to take a downhill turn pretty quickly. I could turn on the TV, it wouldn't matter what channel, and just see a constant flow of people talking and talking. The wrinkled faces, crumpled in anger, all of them sneering, raging, and mocking just one thing: me. People like me. People who'd discovered something new and exciting within themselves and were put down for it. Dragged through the mud. Called awful words on live television, in front of millions every day. Endlessly harassed. The revelations themselves weighed on my mind enough as it was. Seeing so, so many people in such high places wanting me gone from the world because of them, I could feel my heart being dragged down into my stomach each day. I think that was the lowest point of my life.
Eventually, I'd saved up enough to buy something nice for myself. It wasn't often I had the money or self respect to treat myself, so I looked long and hard for anything I might enjoy. I'd already grown out of toys and figurines, and temporary pleasures like sweets and cigarettes didn't really strike my interest. I'd nearly given up and settled for a box of chocolates to hoard anyway, when my eyes landed on a little book, tucked away in the back of the store, past the beige shelves and the sticky rug, in the reading room. It had a colorful cover, which is why I noticed it in the first place, but getting closer, the title really struck my interest. "So, You're Shunned by All of Society; Now What?" Weirdly specific, but I felt it suited the situation. Plus, anything to get away from the monotony of everyday life, especially the gas station. I returned the box to its pile, and bought the book, reading it as I walked home. As I read, though, I realized something strange. As I got deeper and deeper, I became more and more attached to each of the characters. I sighed at their losses, got overcome with pride at their victories, even got a bit misty eyed at their struggles, and that's when it came to me. These peoples' struggles with personal identity and fitting in with the world, their internal conflicts and thoughts -- they're my struggles. They're my internal conflicts. My thoughts. I'd never read a story before that so perfectly encapsulated my experiences, everything I'd been though in my life. So, I kept reading. I read at home, just after waking up, I'd hide the book under the desk at work and read there, and I'd go over a few pages before bed. Last week, when all that reading and reading had finally brought me to the end, I left that story with something I hadn't felt in a long time. Hope. Hope that, if someone out there so fully and truly understands what it's been like for me, what I've had to go through, maybe there are others. Other people who know what it's like to have lived like this, breaking away from social norms and living as who they are. Maybe, I just have to look.
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