StacyLM
Being Robert Frost’s Poster Child (Taking a stab at writing a blurb that someone else might actually read......oy.)
I was as a child, and remain as an adult, a Loner Type. Many years of living alone has, for the most part, been a fine, albeit sometimes challenging, ride. Loner types are frequently misunderstood. Often considered peculiar, or antisocial, or nonconformist, and sometimes misanthropic, none of these labels correspond to who we are as people. We come in packages as varied as anyone else’s. Satisfied enough with our own company, we frequently find most enjoyable those activities which require solitude. We don't require validation. We don't expect others to help us enjoy life. Maybe we are peculiar. Who knows? I neither question nor critique my own inclinations or those of others who are like me, or who are different from me.
I was a kid in the days when roaming the neighborhood streets was safe. Well, safe in contrast to the dangers present in today's streets. My mother shooed me out of the house routinely, and I'm sure she had not the first inkling what I did with my days when I was five or six years old during the off-school months. My, but all these years later, what she still doesn't know.
As a child, I spent my summer days alone, exploring all the places I probably ought not to have explored solo. Some of them presented real, physical dangers. Others were run-of-the-mill, break-your-face, running-with-scissors dangerous. Naturally, my favorite places were the obviously dangerous spots, also known as The Children's Netherworld: the creek (you could contract polio if you got near creek water), the woods (lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my), the standpipe (wicked queens, trolls, wizards and other disreputable characters), and a not-so-local playground where you could chip your tooth or break a leg while playing alone. I walked and wandered and explored all of the mundanely dangerous places, but life's most pleasurable moments were spent alone in the Children's Netherworld.
There is much to be said for the Children's Netherworld of my day, despite its real or imagined dangers. It compelled imagination. It forced creative juices. It challenged physical courage. It served to create in me a whole, self-actualized person. Later in my childhood, it became the wellspring from which arose the thrill of reading, as well as that of a person who ultimately embraced with a critical eye all types of literature. It engendered the mental freedom which allows adventure and exploration in a young person who came to believe that growth of every kind is not only allowed, but encouraged and never ending. This place in my childhood affirmed, for me, that solitude can be a grand, enlightening thing.
I am a Loner Type, AKA Robert Frost’s Poster Child. No Twelve-Step Recovery System required.
Recent Comments
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Hi, there, DSLEM3. Thanks for bothering to read my post, which took more courage to put out there than you can imagine, and thanks so much for the kind words. So good to know that I'm not the only kid who spent her childhood like I did. I feel bad for kids, today. There's just so much out there in The World of Summer, especially, that I believe they know nothing about. Thanks, again! Good to meet you.
Hi Stacy - I really liked your piece. It's very evocative and it certainly stirred some childhood memories of my own - being shooed out of the house and wandering alone round the countryside. To this day - not only do I enjoy solitude - I find it an absolute necessity. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, BIS, for your kind words. Yep, being a solitary person makes life interesting, and most people don't "get it." Nice to know there are others who share this "lifestyle." Actually, being a solitary person makes it very difficult to fathom how many solitary people there are out there. (What a concept!) Again, thanks, and thanks for reading the thing, at all. ;)
Like your post, Susan Cain makes a decent case for the much maligned introverts and recently finished writing 'Quiet'.
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html
Hi, Praise. Thanks for taking time to read my post, and for grasping the "maligned" aspect of this personality type. Also, thanks for the link. I'm on it momentarily. Can't wait to read this so that I can better understand the Power of Introverts. We have power? Who knew? Thanks, again.
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I have been there too I was never watched as a child, but the World was full of untold danger visit my squidoo lens at www.squidoo.com/work-place-bullying to see more of my story and experiences in thw World. I can quite happily exist with friends or just by myself with a good book or not. If only my parents had known half of it.
Thanks, "Dressage," for taking time to read my blog piece, sad a piece of writing as it may be. I did visit your site, and interesting reading it was. I didn’t have the experience of being bullied because I was effectively "absent,” and not very approachable during my school years and throughout my work life. Maybe that's one of the keys to staying off of "Bully Radar:" Keep a low profile or, preferably, appear distant and superior to such bad behaviors
I tend to disagree with the speaker's take on "The Devil Wears Prada." Streep's character's behavior had much to do with helping her new charge to evolve as a person. That really doesn't come through until the end, but that’s how I read it. Nonetheless, I've seen bullying at work in the workplace, and I know that it can be devastating, and stop a career in its tracks. No excuse for it.
Thanks so much for pointing me in the direction of your article. Very enlightening!