Late Bloomer

I am a late bloomer. I grew up late. When I was supposed to have been young, I remember the awful and confusing sights and sounds of not knowing, not daring to know what my life as a grownup would be like. I wanted to hide from it, and sometimes it seemed that remaining a child, staying ignorant was easier and less trouble. I also remember knowing little-practically nothing-about most things. I remember not having confidence in myself, and not even realizing there was such a thing as self-assuredness. My life in those dark years was a series of tea and book reading sessions. It was a series of things not happening, or not happening at the right time. A series of wishes never fulfilled. Of waiting games with my life. Waiting games that have not ended yet.A late bloomer sees things differently. A late bloomer thinks other people are having all the fun while she stays home being old way before her time. A late bloomer does not laugh the way other people do. What does she have to laugh about? She is not a part of a "normal" life as other people understand and live it. She is not part of the "in" crowd, or of any other crowd. She is by herself, a separate being a great deal of the time. She is separate. She is a person cast aside, she is different in a world that does not approve of the word "different". She is lonely in a world that pays only lip service to the idea and the pain of loneliness.