Ramblings of an Introvert

Alone. I have always felt that way. A stranger in a room full of bustling people, who talk, joke, and share their deepest secrets with each other. I feel myself on a parallel plane, observing everything, yet a part of nothing. Even when conversing with others, I cannot garner the interest that I know I should. I cannot share the emotion that I know I should. I talk, I joke, I cry, and I laugh. But all I feel is emptiness. A mannequin among people.

I have spent countless nights dwelling upon this. Searching for an answer that will help me fit in. If other people can go through this “process” with such ease, then why not I? Why is it so difficult for me to want to talk, to converse, to socialize? Is there something fundamentally wrong with me? 

And I waited for an answer that I knew would never come.

However, I have my days. Moments when I feel I can actually connect to the outside world. When I feel I can be a part of them, and take back something to fill that void. When I know that at some level I can actually make it all work. I can actually be the person I know I should be. I dance, I sing, and I talk. I play, I cry, and I laugh. And I succeed in fooling myself for a while.

Through the days, through the failures, I kept looking. I kept questioning. That buzz in my ear which wanted an answer had turned into a roar. And I had no idea how to appease it.

After a night trying to force down these menacing thoughts with some liqour, a friend told me something that would shatter my rotten world, and build it anew: Accept Yourself. At first it didn’t register, partly because of the induced stupor I was in and partly because of my inherent unwillingness to accept help. But slowly I understood.

It dawned on me, like the sunlight after an eternity in darkness. I was blinded by the brilliance of it all. The light poured through me, warmed my skin, and lit up my senses. I am not alone! I am not trapped in my own little cage! I am as free as a bird soaring through the thermals. My life was never about trying to fit in. I had asked the wrong questions, and hence found no answers. Finally I found my sanctuary. My palace of solace. And I call it my mind.

All of us idealise. We try to be the person society expects us to be, thereby creating a version of our self that we want to become. We split our mind into parts that we like and do not like. We keep searching for a way to improve, and attain that state of perfection that we know will bring us our Nirvana. And we beat ourselves up until that point.

Accept yourself.

We are all born unique. We are all different. That is the wonder of it all! The beauty of life! We admire the beauty that separates all the different flowers in the world, then why can we not admire the beauty that separates each and every one of us? Value the differences. That is what makes us special. Why try and change that? Why try and model ourselves around someone else’s idea of perfection? Embrace who we are, and only then will we truly find peace.