kiya

Once again you manage to describe a portion of my own experience in such a way as to make greater sense of myself. I've always know that I had a *seriously* delayed adolescence. Like, we're talking 20 years old when I *started*. I always just figured I was retarded (in a non-judgemental sense). But the gas bubbles thing points out that no, I really didn't have any opportunity for self-definition. Junior High I was "the weird kid", and a couple of people's emotional scratching post (very nice phrase, I thanks to jikharra). High school I managed to find other weird kids, because it was a bigger school, so I at least I didn't have to be the whipping boy. But there was never any real sense of belongingness there. At least not for me. Some of the others I think had it. But for me I still desperately wanted to hang out with the cool kids, this was just something to make my days less hellish. Wasn't until I discovered Usenet, after graduation, that I finally had anything resembling not-family belongingness. And lo, few months later, finally had my very delayed and very much acclerated/shortened adolescence period. And came out completely new person, with actual sense of self.

Huh.