I was the girl who sat behind the desk, my eyes lost in the grand designs of clouds.  The wisps of white fluffy bewitched me. Landscapes of endless forests, dragons and white wolves seduced me to enter re-imagined worlds.  The clatter of a tossed duster would interrupt my wandering thoughts and brought me back to the moment.  There was to be no day-dreaming in class.

My days of mind wandering are not confined to childhood. I still day-dream.   At this stage in my life I have come to accept that is a part of my natural personality.  I am adamant that it is a personality mode and despite what people including some psychologists maintain, it is not merely a bad habit to modify nor an escape mechanism.

It is a need like eating and sleeping.   Yes, on many occasions I tried to refrain from entering my world of fantasy but it always ended up in failure.   

I believe day-dreaming offers an opportunity to disengage for a short period of time. I am unable to cope with the continual relay of words after words.  

From an early age I loved nothing more than to let my eyes wander through beautiful illustrations in books.  I was awe struck by the colour, the characters and the imagined world.  I preferred comic books to books although I did read quite a few of the classics.   I would sit for several hours reading one comic. 

Away back then I don’t think there was much awareness of the introvert personality.  If there were, well it certainly cruised over my teachers and parent’s heads.   Despite not being a quiet person, I felt pushed to participate in anything that would ‘get me out my shell’.  And don’t mention being a team player.

I often sensed deep concern for me in that it was unnatural to want to find a quiet place and be content in one’s own company.   I saw the relief in my mother when I enrolled at a local dance school.  She wasn’t aware that dance also fulfilled my love of re-imagined worlds.  Dance allowed me to tell stories through movement.  I liked nothing better than to feel and then express the emotions in the music.  

There seems to be this common narrative that a well adjusted person has to have a good network of people, enjoy socializing, and be gregarious.  In this capitalist world, we need to turn ourselves into a brand and then be productive in selling oneself to advance the career ladder.  I truly find this difficult and the thought of doing so totally phases me out.  

Moreover, I have to ask – How often, is the solitary person depicted as psychologically or socially inadequate and this can be seen in films and literary works. The question I ask – why has this narrative has taken hold in society what purpose does it serve.  From my viewpoint this completely clashes with the contrasting narrative of you are enough so it is important to be yourself and own your self-confidence.   If the latter is the case then it would appear I was confidently being myself in my younger years.

My younger self was never ever in a shell.  I admit I liked time alone but I had friends.   OK, I only had two very close friends who I met through our mutual love of dance but I had great conversation with different people in each class at school.   I just didn’t have the time to give what it takes to be a decent friend to more than two people.   The fact is that lengthy times in group settings drains me.  The noise is overwhelming and words get lost in each other resulting in nothing other than a hollow sounding din.

So let me take you back to 1970.  Imagine, if you can a sky slate grey and blasts of icy cold shards banging against the window.  The upper deck of the bus was dank and the smoke stuck in hair and eyebrows.  Now, imagine, the most wonderful thing; someone at the front with a radio and out comes a song. It captivates my whole being.  It lures me onto my feet the rhythm bewitches me. I am dancing. The song was All Right Now by Free.

There was no ill intention on my part whatsoever, I was happy despite the ‘dreich’ day lost in the song but the bus conductor grabbed me by the shoulder and tossed me off the bus as if I had committed some heinous act.   Dancing on the upper deck of a bus is not the action of someone who is in a shell.  

I could further enquire why dancing in public is frowned upon.  Why should we only boogie in a club or dance hall.   However, that’s a topic for another day if I feel so inclined.  Oh and for the record, I wasn’t causing a nuisance by leaping down the aisle, I remained in the back row.  

Unfortunately, due to being conditioned into  extroversion I foolishly tried to be the life and soul of the party. 

Of course, I failed miserably.  In doing so I ended up living a chaotic lifestyle for quite an extensive time.  Foolishly, I trapped myself in the clutches of people that sucked the life from me and maintaining such a persona gave mixed messages and I became ill.   In fact I ended up agoraphobic.

Moreover, the body language I  presented was rather hostile as I acted in a contrived manner.   I believe I lost a lot in the process.  I would have fared better if I allowed my natural personality to come through.   In my defence, I would have to say that even if the weird was implicated rather than said, it still played a negative factor upon my life. 

Now after a long rocky road I have eventually come into my own and I have chosen to live a quiet and simple life.  I still day-dream.  There are times when I feel somewhat saddened by the years I wasted. 

The narrative my parents, teachers and community placed over me was detrimental to my well-being. It seeped into my mind and in an attempt to resist I ended up all tangled up in ropes of wrong decisions.  Rather than encouraging me to go to art college, I was corralled into subjects that would get me a proper job.  Of course, I failed miserable and this consolidated me as being labeled  thick.   It was only in recent years that I managed to rip that label off.  

To be continued.