Never Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World

by Christina Rickardsson

We humans have a strong tendency to universalize our own opinions, thoughts, and feelings and assume they apply to other people. No one but me knows what I feel and what I’ve been through. And it’s really not up to anyone else to say what I should and shouldn’t feel.

I understood the importance of having female friends, but I was happier with the boys. Not just because sports were more fun and easier for me to understand, but also because the social code was different with the boys. Their behavior was so different from the girls’. They said what they thought and what they liked, and that made it easier for me. If a problem came up, we fought and then it was resolved. With the girls, I could be playing and then suddenly realize that they were all exchanging these weird looks. Then I would know that I’d said or done something that wasn’t right, but no one would tell me exactly what I’d done. I remember wondering how in the world I was going to learn right from wrong if they wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong. I understood that there were a bunch of unwritten rules that I needed to learn. If I mastered those, I would fit in better. So, I made sure to learn the social norms. I changed who I was, and over time I gradually fit in with my peers. I became one of them.