For the first three years of my life I was an outgoing, sassy and enigmatic child. In my pictures I just hamming it up for the camera and I could tell that I was a kid who just didn’t give a fuck and was enjoying life. Then my little sister came along and it was abundantly clear that it wasn’t just about me, which as anyone going from being an only child to having someone else steal their thunder can understand.
I became painfully shy by the time I was five. The combination of moving to a new town and making new friends stifled me; I had been removed from my comfort zone and friends that I had had literally since birth. The neighborhood was dynamically different, and the kids at school already had their friends set since birth.
I spent the majority of my formative years an introverted girl. I was friendly and kind, but slow to make friends. My parents would often tell me to talk to one new person a day in the hopes that it would help me open up to others. I had friends, don’t get me wrong, but it horrified me to be in social situations with people who I was not close to.
I found my groove, so to speak, before high school and that combined with first semester swim team and second semester track gave me foundation for high school. I was still pretty shy, but it was easier for me to open up to people, even to talk to them.
I’m thankful that I got out of that funk. I’m much more outgoing and confident than I used to be and as a result have a great group of friends. I still have a guard up when I meet people and like to figure them out before they can figure out me, but I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t grown out of being shy and insecure. I can’t imagine it would be half as wonderful as my life is now.
Kevin once suggested to me that he thought people were more likely to be really into Ayn Rand if they hadn’t played team sports in high school. A decent number of the people I know that really love Ayn Rand’s writing are introverted weirdos with delusions of grandeur who don’t understand how things “really get done”—I’m of course referring to the coordinated efforts of bazillions of people, not the epic nature of a few individuals.
