My sweet irony: Confessions of a Preteen Introvert

I might turn this into a book, not sure yet.

I silently watched my parents and grandparents walk away on the damp lawn. Standing in the doorway of my new dorm, my chest rose and fell rapidly as I tried to quell my anxiety. Flurries of others my own age swam around on the campus in front of me and I couldn't help feeling unprepared for this experience. For the first time in my life, I'd be forced to fend for myself and I'd lack the safety net of my own room back home. But, resilient and determined, I turned around and walked into my dorm to embrace the situation and unpack.

 

I was eleven years old.

 

Growing up I was shy and introverted. I preferred reading books instead of interacting and socializing with my fellow fifth graders. Life was dull in the real world. So were people, especially my own age. My parents were concerned with my lack of interest in making friends, but really they ought to have blamed themselves. They taught me from a young age to appreciate things that most of my peers had never even heard of. Instead of letting me watch Cartoon Network and read comic books, my parents raised me on the Marx Brothers movies and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I read biographies and Shakespeare plays instead of the Princess Diaries. I remember being taken to the opera at five years old to see Madame Butterfly by Puccini and being scolded for folding and tearing at my program out of boredom. They didn't want a child. They wanted a smaller version of themselves. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that I was bullied and excluded. 

 

My parents, roughly middle class and hard-working, decided the education of my older brother and I should be a top priority, and they sent us to the nicest private elementary school in our district. That meant church every morning before class, itchy kakhi and wool uniforms, and peers I had little to nothing in common with. My classmates had parents who drove shiny SUV’s and Mercedes. The girls I ate lunch with wore diamond studs in their ears and carried Coach purses instead of backpacks. I didn’t have French manicured nails; or a nanny or stay at home mom. After school every day I was always the last student to get picked up because my mom had to race over from the city when she got off work. At ten or eleven years old, this was one of the worse humiliations I could endure. I couldn’t fit in with my classmates on an internal or external level, but if you don’t have friends, school much harder to get through, so I tried my best anyways.

 

The summer after fifth grade my parents thought they found a solution. They had me apply to a summer program for "gifted" students. We took a test similar to the SAT and however high we scored in a given category, we qualified for a selection of classes related to that category. I scored high enough in the writing and reading comprehension categories. I signed up for a creative writing class. The site my parents enrolled me at that would be my home for three weeks that summer, and they chose the one farthest away from my home in California. A small college in Massachusetts. The thought of being so far away was frightening and exciting. I'd read so many books about girls traveling away from home and having life-changing experiences in foreign places. I thought maybe if I was given the chance to leave, I could shed my introverted shell and become a classic young adult heroine. So despite my initial fear, I accepted my situation and decided to embrace it. 

 

However, the day I arrived I immediately regretted the decision. The giant sprawling New England campus was intimidating in its composition. Red brick buildings swathed in ivy, spidery thin glass windows that somehow seemed to have shadows lurking behind them. All the others my age were mingling, laughing among themselves as naturally as breathing. I longed to wade in with them, but as usual, like with my books, I was on the outside looking in. Observing others create memories and connections. And it had only been the first 20 minutes. I watched my family walk away, and I retreated back into the safety of my dorm's dusty air conditioning and bile-colored walls. I sat down on the linoleum floor of my temporary room and started unpacking my suitcases. 

 

I looked over to the other bed next to mine, a flimsy rusted bed frame with a threadbare mattress, someone, my new roommate I surmised, had thrown a duffel bag next to it and abandoned it. Coming from California to Massachusetts my parents had allowed me only two suitcases, one for clothes, the other for bedding and other bare essentials. So naturally unpacking only took about half an hour. Soon, I grew bored, and hearing voices and laughter drifting in from down the hall, I pushed down my anxiety, and tentatively went to investigate. Opening my door with an awkward creak, lyrics from some pop culture song I didn't recognize thumped through the hall, and I gravitated toward the source of the sound. I knocked softly. Too softly, maybe they couldn't hear me. I decided to just push open the slightly ajar door.

 

 I was instantly assaulted by various shades of pink, a fuzzy throw rug on the floor, puffy pillows adorning the bed, and even a wire waste basket underneath the desk. Two girls were sitting on the rug flipping through magazines, while a third was balanced precariously on her rolling desk chair, trying to tape a poster on her wall. The boy in the poster looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't place him, he seemed to be winking suggestively at me underneath his blonde bangs. 

"Oh my god Caroline," One of the girls on the floor exclaimed, "You have the same birthday month as Jesse McCartney!" 

"What??" The other girl on the floor, with thick brown bangs cut straight across her forehead, leaned over to look at the magazine.

She started giggling, and I realized they still hadn't noticed my presence.

I cleared my throat, and managed to squeak out a soft, "Hi."

The three girls simultaneously looked up at me incredulously. I braced myself for their response. My past track record with girls was pretty negative, at my school back home, I'd had peanut butter smeared in my hair, my lunch made fun of for its non-name brand products, and my books thrown into trash cans. 

The one on the chair jumped down with ease, rushed over, and enveloped me in a hug. "Hi! I'm Lulu! Do you live in our hall? What class are you taking? I'm in Game Theory, I'm so excited to meet everyone else!" She grinned, revealing a green and blue mouth full of braces.

The brown-haired girl on the floor smiled at me, "I'm Caroline!"

The other next to her with long black braids waved, "I'm Angel! Do you want to take this crush quiz?" She gestured at the magazine.

I was briefly baffled, but looking at the sincerity in their faces I managed to smile back and relax. "I'm Natalia, I'm actually taking a creative writing class. But yeah I'd love to take a," I paused momentarily, not quite sure what Angel had been referring to, “A crush quiz?”

“Yeah!” Angel patted the spot next to her and motioned for me to sit. “I know it’s dumb but it tells you if your crush is actually interested or not.”

“What if I don’t have one?” I asked, plopping down criss cross applesauce.

Caroline laughed, revealing a slight gap in between her two front teeth. “I did this program last summer. Trust me, before these three weeks are up, you’ll have at least five.”

I smiled shyly, unsure of what to make of this. Social interactions were difficult enough, but now boys had to be thrown into this as well? Still, I settled in, while Angel checked off little bubbles on the page for me. Lulu, Caroline and Angel gossiped a little more about last summer but always made sure I understood the context of whatever they were discussing.

My initial fear subsided, and I grew hopeful. As much as I hated to credit them for anything, maybe my parents had been right when they shipped me out here. The next three weeks could be exactly what I needed.

Reviews

[Mariah Renae]

I love it! I want to read more. I feel connected to Natalia and I am intrigued by her story; her past, present (this story), and future. This story is very clearly written. Well done!