My mother tells a story about me that reflects a lot of my life experience. As the youngest child, she was concerned that I was too isolated after my brothers and sister went off to school. Despite having great memories of staying home with her to play and read, she enrolled me in preschool with high hopes of me making friends and socializing with other kids my age. After multiple days of finding me playing alone in the sandbox when she arrived at the end of the day to pick me up, she pulled me out of the school in frustration. In her words, “why would I pay to find you playing by yourself every day?” I have (apparently) been a loner since I was 3 or 4 years old.

50 years later, I am finally figuring out why preschool wasn’t a successful socialization for me. Maybe I’m a slow…