Nerd, dork, or simply "the weird kid," I knew my place in your world. You probably wondered why someone would choose the life I led, but know that I didn't.
I'm not going to make this a "I didn't choose the nerd life, the nerd life chose me," kind of deal because that's not what this is. Nobody likes being ostracized and their stuff being vandalized. I was a square peg in a round hole. I couldn't fit in if I wanted to.
First of all, there were the conversation topics. Your chats revolved around things like television shows on channels that my home did not have, video games I was not allowed to play, restaurants my family did not go to, and clothing stores that I had never set foot in. It was impossible for me to participate in your conversations! I was incorrectly given the "quiet" label by many.
But even if you invited me to hang out, I wouldn't be able to go. Your versions of "hanging out" were out of my price range. I couldn't afford to be a part of your friend groups.
Then there was the whole "nerd" part. Because grades were a super stressful topic for me. Because I misinterpreted the ways adults called me smart with adults telling me that I was not allowed to academically mess up ever. Because adults put it in my head that grades in middle school were life-or-death. Because if your older sibling takes the honors class, you force yourself to take it also, simply out of not wanting people to think that you're the "dumber" of the two.
Because that's an insecurity that's its own can of worms. Because let's face it. When you have an older sibling that doesn't have the issues with hyperactivity that you do, combined with them always being developmentally ahead (especially maturity-wise), you are going to be insecure that people see you as the lesser of the two. You have it in your head that people think that you're "the stupid one." And you carry that insecurity with you at all times. And so you take honors classes that you should have never taken because they are more difficulty than they're worth, and you lose sleep and sanity stressing over a middle-school math class that the outside world doesn't care about, because you need the validation. And not wanting to admit defeat and move to the grade-level eighth-grade math class, you find yourself cheating (now that the statute of limitations is long passed and all that). Because you have it in your head that smart people are too smart to ask for extra help. Smart people always know the answer. If you ask for extra help, you a) make people think you aren't "smart" by society's rigid definition of the term and b) somehow, magically, make yourself less intelligent (by my preteen logic) and that feeds into your insecurities. And so you become a ball of stress that's bursting at the seams instead of having the fun you're supposed to at that phase of life (and all phases really).
And it's not like I could recover when I got home. When your parents' marriage is imploding before your eyes, home becomes equally if not more stressful. Bouncing between two stressful places with no recovery takes a toll on you. I wasn't what you thought I was. I was under insane, multidimensional stress. As are all former childhood "weird kids" I've met.
