Lizzy is her own little person. Growing to be her own lady... and someone I admire perhaps more than she'll ever know.
I ask her often about her day. I ask what the best part was or if she made someone smile. I'll often use a sentence like "what did your friends think of..." and she'll reply "mom I don't have many friends". I asked her recently about recess and she said "I usually play by myself" and when I asked who she eats with at lunch she replied, "I usually eat alone". My heart sank when she said that. To me it was such a sad, lonely picture.
The last time we asked her teacher about it, her teacher said, "Liz is very well liked... I often hear other kids ask her to play, she just usually says 'nah' and chooses to be by herself so she can make up stories or talk to her 'imaginary friends'. I think after a while, they just give up asking".
I asked Lizzy if it made her sad to not have many friends and if her being alone is by choice and she replied, nonplussed "oh I don't care. I usually like to be alone. I don't want to play what they're playing and I like my stories better". She truly likes her own world, the one she invents the characters for and the interactions in. Is that because she can control it? She gets her feelings rather easily hurt in the real world. She burst into tears one day because a girl who HAD been a friend said, "hey Lizzy, I like your earrings... NOT!" causing some others to laugh at Lizzy. What was heartening is that apparently a number of girls, girls she doesn't hang out with every day because she doesn't hang out with anyone, came rushing to her defense and ran to the teacher saying "Liz doesn't deserve that! They shouldn't make her cry like that!" Or, control or not, real world or not, does she just truly like her own world and doesn't care if that many are interested in sharing it with her.
There's a struggle, as a parent, to let your child be who THEY are. To not foist upon them your habits, fears, likes, dislikes, better attributes and worst detriments. I was a VERY different child. I was very sensitive, very shy, had a huge imagination, poor social skills and was often lonely because of it. I did NOT tell my parents however. I didn't tell them that I played and ate alone most days. I didn't tell them that I wished I could make friends as easily as my sister did. I didn't tell them about the bullies who dumped my lunch nearly daily in elementary school from 1st through 3rd grades. I didn't tell them about the girls who bullied me in middle school.
So when I hear Lizzy say she CHOOSES to be alone, or she's FINE without friends, or that she's not sad or lonely because of it... I find myself balancing my worry that she's actually lonely and has hardened her heart to being different and my absolute ADMIRATION that she's already confident enough to be exactly who she is. She makes no attempt to even discern what the trends are. She said simply, when I asked why she doesn't compromise with other kids and sometimes make an attempt to understand their game and then ask them to do the same in return, "I don't think they'll get my world, mom. And theirs doesn't interest me." So I have to fight that parental instinct to let her be EXACTLY WHO SHE IS. Not worry that she's lonely like I would be in her shoes. Not worry that her "weirdness" will make it hard to have friends. I have to let Liz be Liz (that is her name of choice in school, not Elizabeth and not Lizzy, but she says she likes that I call her Lizzy).
Her stepsister once commented about what the "popular" kids at her school were wearing and doing and when she asked Lizzy if it was the same at her school, Lizzy said "I don't know, actually". Lizzy honestly doesn't know. She doesn't keep an eye out for these things. She does't honestly care. She dresses by mood and her interests go by mood too. I suppose THAT part of her I relate to. I just didn't posses that confidence until high school. Before that, I cared and wanted so badly to be liked. By high school I dressed by mood. One day I wanted my all black and stick straight hair. The next a crazy printed skirt, fringed shirt and 90's poofy hair. I'm still like that. I go by mood. I start knitting a scarf but then turn to painting. Then I take up writing a new story. So I UNDERSTAND that side of her, but I have to fight the urge to say "well, like me..." because she's not like me. She's exactly like Elizabeth Grace Plavin.
She's a little girl who one day loves starting a "writing club" with a bunch of girls at school and who chooses to be alone the next because they've lost interest in the stories and "just want to walk around" (as she puts it) and she would rather write. She's a little girl who one day wants to play dress up and make up with her stepsister, but the next day really wants to just wear her leggings and high tops and could care less about "looking pretty". She's a little girl who one day wants to dress in a skirt and knee socks to look like the "Kawaii" anime girls she draws, but then the next day wants to dye her hair blue and wear something that more resembles the tough armor the Overwatch character she's been inspired by wears. She's the little girl who cares that a an "old friend" who she used to play with "hates her" but at the same time, chooses not to play with that same girl because "she doesn't get me anyway". She lives with headphones permanently in her ADHD ears because the strange amalgamation of big-band/ragtime/electronica/pop/metal/classical that make up her playlists (because they've been featured in a video game) helps her focus. She's the girl who seems barely to hear you when you speak to her, not because she's not enthusiastic or not because she doesn't like you, but because her head is already somewhere else or because (as she told me today) "she's tired a lot".
I remembered her first therapist saying "It's exhausting being Elizabeth". Because her head was SO busy and so full and her imagination was constantly running and her senses are constantly either on overload or SEEKING input because her sensory disorder is marked by under-responsivity, her therapist said it's truly exhausting being in her world for her.
And yet, she likes it there. She loves her world of (at least today) Warrior Cats (from a book series) and bed wars (from Minecraft) and Kawaii-style characters (from her love of anime) and whatever drama she cooks up in her own stories. At least, I think she does. I truly hope she isn't just saying she "chooses to eat alone" because she's hardened her heart and figures "fine, if no one will be my friend, then I don't need friends", but is actually lonely. I think she truly just likes her world.
She seems to be a happy kid. She really does. She doesn't avoid school. She does't feign illness or seek reasons to stay home. She's often cheery and upbeat. She's my sunshine really. She's this burning bright ball of ideas and drawings and stories and smiles and silliness and love and hugs and emotion. Even if that ball comes with a girl who will strike out at me if her tangly hair hurts too much to brush. Even if that ball comes with a sensory seeker who needs to jump around or touch everything or be in constant motion but doesn't notice when she's stepping on your feet or walking on your papers. She is an amazing, courageous, funny, creative ball of sunshine whom I don't think I completely understand.
But I admire her more than anything. I, myself, am still afraid to eat alone.
