Insisting on yourself ...

 R.B. Ganon took my American Literature course in 2011, which seems like a lifetime ago.  From my vantage point, he was of the most comfortable and easygoing kids in any of my classes.  Quick with a joke and popular with his peers, he seemed like the most happily extroverted young man I could imagine.  Look at him hangin’ with Ben Peters at the jumpy-fest known as Junior Day of Fun (see below).

So when I approached him about writing something for the 650 Words blog, I was surprised that he wanted to write about loneliness and the high school experience.  For him, it was the first thing that came to mind.  It was a good reminder for me that everyone experiences some measure of loneliness, even the smiling kid who is clowning around in class all the time.  Maybe especially that kid -- as articulated beautifully by the band Wilco in the song “How to Fight Loneliness” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CAYFIpi89k).  That’s right:  smile all the time.

R.B. is originally from San Diego, CA, where he grew up playing soccer and skateboarding on the Mission Beach boardwalk.  He graduated from high school in 2012 after which he headed off to Boston for college.  Now he works in sales for a software company based in the city.  He digs being outside, discovering new music, thrifting, and museums.

In this post, he writes about the loneliness and uncertainty that rumbled underneath the surface of his high school experience.
-  C.H.

High school was undoubtedly the most difficult four years of my life to date. The pressures and difficulties that present themselves during this transformative period affect all students and can have a lasting impact on the way those individuals cope with similar adversity down the line.

For me, the biggest challenge I tackled in high school was the seemingly paradoxical goal of embracing those traits that make me stand apart from others while simultaneously trying to fit in with my peers. To add to the difficulty of this balancing act, my body, mind and spirit were all changing so quickly that I found it increasingly difficult to identify the things that I really did align with. I mean, do I really like cooking shows or was I only watching it to start a conversation with Ally from Stats? (I really do like cooking shows; in retrospect that may have been the only thing we actually had in common.)

I am proud to say that the way I dealt with this was to follow my gut and continue to prioritize those things I knew appealed to me, regardless of their popularity at school. This decision, mature and wise though it was, had repercussions of its own as I found myself feeling increasingly lonely at school. I wasn’t being rejected by my peers; I still ate lunch, cracked jokes, and played intramural sports with the same buddies. The difference I found was much subtler as it was a change in my perspective of our relationship. The conversations that occurred at the lunch table usually surrounded topics that I wasn’t nearly as interested in as the larger group and those topics that I was passionate about rarely came up.

This led to a pretty difficult time for me. I felt as though I only had one true friend, my buddy Max who I skated with on weekends at Shockus Skatepark in OB. I got on well with everyone at school but rarely got to discuss my passions with my peers. This feeling of loneliness followed me for quite a while and made it increasingly difficult for me to enjoy school and take care of my responsibilities at the time.

One summer day I woke up and realized that I hadn’t seen friends or done something truly productive in nearly a month. I had literally watched tv, made food and maybe skated for an hour every single day. I decided at that moment that I was going to get out of bed and do something, ANYTHING, to take advantage of the beautiful San Diego summer day I had been blessed with. In the shower, I was going through all of the things I might do that day and found there were two major obstacles in my way: 1) I was dead broke. 2) I did not have a car. While this may have put me right back to bed the day before, I was intent on breaking the cycle of laziness. When I got out of the shower I grabbed my iPod nano, my cell phone, and jumped on the bicycle we had stored in the garage.

For the next 7 hours I biked from La Jolla up to Torrey Pines then all the way over to Ocean Beach before finally making my way home tired, sweaty, hungry, and the happiest I had been in months. I had a realization on this ride that continues to empower me to this day: I LOVE hanging out with myself.

When my perception of my school relationships had changed, it left me feeling lonely and isolated. What I found on my bike ride was a change of perspective about the feeling of loneliness that had been following me. The truth was that I had an expectation that my peers should or would eventually take an interest in those things that interested me without giving much thought to the bigger question: who cares?

Though it would be nice to go to school with 120 students who shared my passions and could converse with the same zeal I felt about the subjects, that simply isn’t realistic. That night I realized it was okay not to have my best friends attend school with me and that it’s healthy to have peers with whom a friendly surface-level relationship is the extent of your love for one another.

Once you’ve graduated you’ll find that high school is the last time in life where your social circle is acutely limited to one group of people. As a young adult, you choose who you spend time with more carefully as time itself becomes more valuable. The most important thing to do during the high school years is to get along well with yourself and you give yourself credit where it’s due. You are fucking awesome; just because you don’t hear it from others doesn’t stop it from being true and just because your interests aren’t mainstream certainly doesn’t mean they’re wrong to pursue. Enjoy them, explore them, and invest in them -- but NEVER belittle or disregard them.   Get to work!