I sit there in silence with no desire to be a part of the conversation, at that point, I cannot relate, to anything. Viewpoint and the music, but at least I am outside and with people, it’s been a while hey.

“Well done, honey”, said the inner voice to myself.

My friend and I were chilling with two other girls whom we grew up with in the same neighbourhood. This hardly happens and I am happy. I hardly go out and the fresh air feels so good. Did it really have to take someone to get me out of the house? Well, it seems that’s the case, since I have not been out since then (a bad habit).

While talking, the girls roll a joint of weed to my discomfort and the conversations progress to gossip. A certain girl of our age group is now hooked on drugs. How ironic! But according to my peers, weed is not an equally dangerous drug. Apparently the drugs are now showing on her. I really am so disappointed to hear this, however, I can tell that my concerns and my views on drug use are a joke here, so I keep to myself.

I said NO without feeling bad to the weed and I left, even though I would have loved to stay longer.

“Well done, honey”, said the inner voice to myself.

Had I stuck to my Christian values, I would have never find myself in this group to begin with. I know for sure, that I would have never known what Xanax or Ecstasy is. People have made mention of these types of drugs in different friend groups that I found myself being a part of. I really thought that this was movie kind of stuff until one of my close family members was also drawn to these crowds and became addicted to drugs. I’ve watched from the outside, others be drawn into these traps of bad friends and drugs.

I approach this conversation with so much compassion and understanding because, the gap between myself and being that girl who is hooked on drugs is small. In retrospect, I understand just how much closer this was to me. I was raised in a church where people take chaperones to their dates (it’s an extreme measure). A chaperone is someone who will accompany you to your date, this is usually someone older or mature in faith than you. I understand now, why this was so. I understand the lessons better now and I am grateful for them. If you don’t want to do drugs, you simply don’t hang around that crowd, easy and extreme. Imagine not being friends with someone because they smoke weed or any other drug, even though it’s so much more acceptable in the society we live in. I practiced this as a teenager and only started to deviate in college, when I felt that these values were not my own and I had to find mine.

I have learnt to be alone, in my values and beliefs. In my former years of college, I would have wanted, with everything in me, to be a part of the conversations, share the laughter and even the music. I would have felt so invisible for not knowing the latest musician, when there were other things I knew much more about. I probably would do my homework just so I don’t feel so alone in the group. Hence I said, “Well done, honey”.

A part of me had been scared of not being part of the group because I had experienced so much bullying in high-school that when I went to college, I did everything to counteract that before it could even happen. I watch stories of children who commit suicide because of bullying and learning how to piece that story in my puzzle. I am learning from these stories of others, just how it is also an experience that causes trauma and pain. Something that I could not recognise that experience to be. Recognising it like that brings so much healing to me. I have also grown to love talking to children and teenagers. I really would love to work with them one day. I feel there is so much that happens in their world that cannot even be processed.

I have learnt to be alone (to my detriment even). I am learning again the values I was taught growing up that I seem to have forgotten somewhere, as a compromise to fitting in. I am learning the balance of standing for something and also being open minded.

Human beings exist in a community, that’s the popular belief. There are times when you won’t have a community, when you will feel alone. During those times, can you sit in your aloneness and find happiness? Can you still plan the hike you so badly want to go on? Can you sit at Wimpy and have chai with no one sitting across you?