Growing up...with respect to myself

The other day I came a bit late to office. It was around 11:15 and I was hungry. Now 11:15 is neither breakfast nor lunch time. It's sort of an in-between time. I have quite a few friends here in office, but I didn’t feel like disturbing any of them. I went to the canteen ordered my lunch and ate it with leisure. Infact, I was enjoying my solitude so much that it took me almost double the time I normally take to finish my lunch. Almost all the while I was conversing with myself, rest of the time I was simply taking in the activity around me. Inspite of the hustle bustle around me I was at peace with myself. It was then that I thought how I have changed with time!

I am a quiet sort of a person and enjoy spending time with myself, but in private. When it comes to public life then things are quite different. When I was in college I would hate the times I had to be alone. I wanted to be seen with friends, wanted people to know that I too have friends like them. It was the same in school. By school I mean since around the time I was in class 5.

Before that the concept used to be different. In Lower and upper kindergarten our teachers would allot us our seats and whoever would sit beside me would become my best friend and perhaps the only friend. Our benches used to be long ones where almost 4 kids could fit in comfortably. I remember one parent teacher's meeting around the time I was in upper kindergarten. I introduced the girl, who used to sit next to me, to my parents as my best friend. She on the other hand introduced the girl who used to sit on her other side as her best friend. It never occurred to me that if I think of somebody as my best friend then it is desirable that the feeling is reciprocated. Now when I look back, that is the ideal kind of friendship one can imagine of, where you don't expect anything from the other person.

Since class 5 things started becoming a bit different. I didn't take it for granted that the person I am made to sit beside has to be my best friend. Infact in class 6 when we were given the freedom to choose our partners then almost everybody rearranged like i did and sat beside their best friends. I use the word 'best friend' so many times because at that time it was the most important word in our social life. If you have a 'best friend’, mind you not just friends, then you have a status, a recognition. Almost every year there would be a bit of shuffling among the students in different sections that would put our social lives in complete chaos. In those times being in a different section (different section necessarily used to be adjacent rooms) meant being far away!!

Things did change as we grew up. By the time we were in class 9 we had a big group of 12 and we had lots and lots of fun together. By that time the concept had again changed, from less is more it had become the more the merrier. So there were different phases, but i could not picture myself alone in any of these phases. I had to be seen with friends. At that time around I wasn’t comfortable with myself. I would admire seniors and wish i could be like them. My acceptance for myself was directly proportional to the way my friends accepted me.

By the time I was in college I was a bit more comfortable with myself, at least I didn’t want to be someone else. I was sort of ok with myself but not totally. In college status had a different meaning. Status meant having a boyfriend. It was amusing to watch the way people around me shifted from one boyfriend to another. I used to admire them somewhat, perhaps coz I could never achieve that status myself! I had a few very good friends and I was comfortable with them, but again, I was not comfortable being alone and whenever I would be alone I would become a bit conscious.

I really cannot identify one particular time when things started changing. And anyways, changes like these hardly happen consciously. Now I am comfortable with the person I am. I know myself a lot better. I know my faults and shortcomings and I am no longer uncomfortable about them. Most importantly I am no longer afraid of being alone. I had realized long ago that it is impossible to always have friends beside me, being far away no longer means being in adjacent rooms. But now when I go through such times I don't feel gloomy, instead I enjoy being with myself.