In Reply to: Re: Blast from the Past (Repost) posted by Erik's Daughter on June 08, 2004 at 10:18:15:
Growing up in The Family I could never get alone. During my adolescence this was difficult to endure day after day. From the time I woke up in the morning in my bunkbed, whether in the Teen Room or later in the Teen Girls' room, the herd of us trying to use the bathroom so as to get to breakfast, devotions, JJT on time under penalty of demerits. Then straggling through the crowded day to its end with a Home Word time or taking care of kids so others could do whatever it was -- again, at times. And the shepherds expected to know your most intimate thoughts of heart and mind.
Yet I had no friends I could trust or with whom I could talk about my thoughts, ideas or dreams, therefore I led a very lonely existence.
Now I tend to seek solitude. I can spend hours alone and indoors just feeling safer and thinking or reading or whatever. I can't avoid people completely, though. In defined roles (bosses, professors) I can manage.
I have only learned recently how to maintain friendships, but it doesn't come naturally yet.
As far as intimacy of a more romantic type, that is foreign to me and I will probably never know how to achieve or maintain it.