Preface: Just Smile
"They have truthfulness and honest dealing and friendship for their goal, and kindness even toward a vicious foe; until at last they change this prison of treachery, the world, into a mansion of utmost trust, and turn this gaol-house of hatred and malevolence and spite, into God's Paradise," (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 221).
Growing up, I was constantly moving around, from city to city, school to school. One year it was New York city, then Toronto, followed by D.C. Now, I'm not complaining about the travel; being able to see different places is amazing. But, as a child, never knowing where I was going next, never having a steady friend, was really hard for me. Instead of forcing me to learn how to make friends more easily, as it did with my younger sister and brother, it did the opposite.
I became more and more introverted, relying on my books for company. My confidence crumbled, my heart scarred from all the loss of those I'd cared for. By the time my family settled when I was eleven, I was a lost cause. I was too scared, too unsure of myself.
I hid from the world.
My books became my shield, my defense against all the pain I knew was out there, waiting for me. It was my constant. When my parents argued, when my grades dropped, when I was left out by the other kids, I read. It was a place I could disappear to, a whole new world, with magic and romance and adventures that I knew always had a happy ending. And problems that were never my own.
Yet, there in my heart, I longed for it. For the trust and companionship shown in my stories, for the friendship I witnessed at school amongst my peers. My pessimistic mind, however, informed me over and over again that it was something I couldn't have. It simply got worse as I got older, until I firmly believed that I was a burden no one would want around.
So I put on a mask for the world, and smiled.