Walking Alone

When I was ten, I shifted to a newly opened school, and during the first year, I was the only girl in the class so I naturally learnt to stay alone and walk alone.

I walked alone, from the school and to the school. I was happy to be alone. That was my first brush with "being with your own self". During the same year, I was walking alone on a road trying to catch up with my school seniors, who were walking a little ahead, on a hundred metre trail to the rented van from the house we were staying at, for a Chess tournament. That was the first time I was told, "Girls don't walk alone, they walk in groups". My ten-year-old self found this idea absurd, and laughed about it. Little did I know that the incident officially marked the period of judgements about being a girl who walked alone.

The next year, I finally had classmates who were girls. And puberty hit me, making me a lot self-conscious about what I looked like. First I wondered why everyone stared at me whenever I was on the way to my mum's office. It took me a lot of time to adjust to this world's judgemental stares and I then made friends who walked on the same path to school. I loved walking with them as when I talked, I didn't really focus on my surroundings. And that's when I went away from being with my own self to being in company, almost all the time. Through the years, there were only a few things that I did alone. I hated the stares, and feared being alone so much, that I sometimes waited for an hour in school, so that me and my friend could go back home together.

And that's how I found myself always trying to fit in. To fit into the herd. Animals move together in groups, in herds, packs, groves and troops, but when we think of the same thing in humans, why does the rule to always be in a group apply only to the women? Why are men not told to be in groups?

Back to the story.

Years passed, and school finished. It was only when I was dropping an year, did I learn to be at peace with myself. And when I found solace within self, I was captivated. And slowly, I learnt to walk alone once again. And this time, hopefully nothing will take this habit of mine away.

So, the next time you see women like me, dining alone, walking alone or travelling alone, it isn't because they are depressed or have no one to go to. It is because they are happy being with themselves, and they love themselves more than other people.

After all, your own self is sometimes the best company.