3 AM

The Odd One Out

I came across a question of Quora that really picked my brain

"Have you ever felt like the odd one out in your family? If so, how have you dealt with it?"

So I decided to tackle the question and I sent me down such a deep dive of why I am the way I am and why I feel the way I do.

Enjoy!!!

Ps. Let me know if you've ever felt this way, feel free to comment and share.

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For the most part of my  felt this way. I grew up somewhat close with many of my cousins and extented family from both my mom and dad's side. I spent my early years being the youngest of my cousins, I then grew up a bit and we where all in the same age group, we played with toys and dolls together, swam and spent our days outside, till it felt like they grew up and I was still just a little child, this is where most of the oddness developed. My cousins where teenagers and I was still in single digits, I was left behind and had to learn to be alone. Now more cousins have been born but they are babies and I'm 20, my older cousins also being in their 20s, we get along but I still feel different and left out.

Having to adapt to being alone at such a young age made me into a very socially awkward kid, what didn't help was the fact that I was shunned in school, I went a greek school with predominantly white school students with also many back students, not much mixed race (coloured - ps I'm from Zimbabwe this phrase is not offensive to us its a term for a whole different race) like myself. At the school everyone was basically rich or very well off, my family not so much, we're a middle class family growing financially from practically nothing. For these reasons I wasn't accepted socially, it's as if where ever I go I'm too different.

The adaption to loneliness fed an intrest in learning, I quickly got labled as the “smart one” in the family. The one to do great things, this put pressure on me that I didn't need. My love to learn also sparked in intrest in books, film and TV, specifically Sci-fi and fantasy. I'm deep into the MCU and have a wide understanding of the multi versial and time theories involved in movies like those of the MCU, as well as a great knowledge of ethics, psychology, history, mythology, animation, anime, literature, arts, science and much more.

Now that you understand who I am a bit and what i like, it'll be easier to get my family dynamic. Within the family I'm the only one who likes any of this kind of stuff, my famly is very much full of social outgoing party people, they spend their week thinking about what club, party or house they're going to for Friday and Saturday night. Who they drinking with, what they drinking and where they drinking. They live and work for the party. I don't, I hate to go out, I don't enjoy drinking much and all I want to do is curl up watch a movie or binge a show then have an existential crisis because of the shows themes.

I tend to look at things on a deeper level while my family is shallow and looks at things at surface level. I struggle to converse with them and my time spent with them annoys me sometimes and bores me close to death.

I have no one to talk about space, time, ethics and comic books with. They want to talk about boys, drink alcohol, dance and gossip. I feel uncomfortable when I discuss such mundane topics with them because frankly I don't feel like I need ro share such information, I also dont know how to do it so freely. I'm a very shy individual who's very scared of embarrassment, I feel violated when I talk of my crushes and relationships, like its information that I shouldn't be giving away, I want to keep it to myself out of fear of embarrassment.

I'm struggling out here and I'm so afraid to open up and let go, people say it's easy but it really isn't. I don't like to feel judged and I hate attention. But I have this heavy weight on my chest all the time from holding all this in. I feel like once I'm out for uni and my own life beings I'm not going to come back. I feel much more comfortable with the found family idea than my own blood relatives. I need to find people like me who can understanding how I feel and talk how I talk and do what I do, enjoy what I enjoy.