There are times when, even at age 44, the insecurity of my teen years rears its ugly head. When I think about it honestly, I realize I've always been insecure. I've covered it well. I had a few friends in elementary school, a few in middle school, and finally a rather close-knit few in high school. But try as I might, I could never really get in with those I wanted to be in with. And that hurt. I was never the cool one. Never the popular one. Never the pretty one. So...I compensated.
As a child, I compensated with laughter and jokes in public and lots of singing, dancing and piano playing for publicly and privately. I expected that my musical talent would somehow propel me into the limelight I craved so badly.
As a teenager, I compensated in much the same ways, but something new reared its ugly head - BOYS! Uh-oh. The ones I really, really liked only liked me for my cheat notes, test answers and any "availability" I might have. By high school, I had found my niche mostly - in places like choir, Thespians and newspaper/yearbook.
But still...those old insecurities stayed with me. All through college - I had a small group of friends, but I was never part of a sorority (truly didn't want to be, but that can limit who your "friends" are) or part of student government or anything like that. I had choir friends, dorm friends.
I've always felt like any friendship I have has been something that *I* have to take the lead in. If I don't call or write or email or text or whatever, my friends certainly won't call me. If I don't make the effort, no one is going to make the effort to know me or contact me or care about me.
There can often be a vast difference between truth and feelings, can't there? In my heart, I know that my current friends would move Heaven and earth to help me if I really needed something. But the insecure part of me wonders, would they really? What if they had a dinner date with their cooler friends? What if they had to choose between lunch with me or working on their "cooler" church calling?
It sounds really stupid, doesn't it? Maybe that's why I'm writing it down and putting this out there. Maybe I'm just looking for people to comment and tell me how sweet and funny and cool I am. But that would be just like those yearbook comments, wouldn't it? "You're a great friend. I'm glad I got to know you this year. Stay sweet and funny." Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
I don't know why this is bothering me these days. I just had the best. day. in. a. long. time yesterday with my "old" friend Sandy. We hadn't seen each other for eight years, but it was just like we'd never been apart. I love friends like that. So see, Stacy? You do have them.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just depressed because I had to pay bills today and I can't really afford to go to Utah and I really wanted to. Yeah, that's probably it. Or not.
1 comment:
You are absolutely right Stacy - about all of it! All of us face the same insecurities. None of us really fit in. who are the cool peole anyway? We imagine that everyone except for us is out having a really good time but they really aren't. They are sitting at home wondering what we're doing! ;) Oh and you are right about being the pretty, funny talented one too!
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