These the words that would ring in my ears throughout my youth. At school, the boys on prefect duty, forever blocking my way. At university, the bouncer outside a bar or club. Amongst peers, the young man intent on belittling me, and isolating me completely.
In those days, it would leave me distraught. I was so bitter, raging against the world. For the whole of my youth, I felt that I was being excluded from everything, forever the misfit, rejected. In selecting teams for a game of football, I would always be picked last. Amidst a crowd, I would be the one on the far periphery, completely ignored.
I suppose it’s no surprise that in the end I went my own way. Perhaps all of those experiences were a blessing in disguise, enabling me to hold to a path far away from the clamour of the thronging crowds. Perhaps it was just training for my soul, enabling me to take up the lonely road. Perhaps I was being to taught how to swim against the tide.
That bitterness of youth has left me now. Today I am capable of seeing that there was goodness in all I experienced back then. It was a probably a good thing that I wasn’t allowed in, after all.
Last modified: 9 November 2022
