Does anybody else ever look back at their younger school days and just cringe? For me, I was such a freakin weirdo! It was all boys and trying to attach to anything "cool", trying to be important to anybody at all. I said stupid things, I did stupid things. I looked like a boy for a while. I'm not making that up. Everything that is cliche about being "uncool" was in my repertoire. Everything! Some people might say it about themselves and you can look back and sort of think through it, shrug it off and say it wasn't that bad. Yeah...not so much for me. It was that bad.
I don't really care so much now that I've gotten older. I don't even really care if I make up all my weirdness to everyone who knew me. If anything, I have only grown up to be even stranger...but at least it's translating into humor everyone else can get. Mostly!
My favorite used to be running into friends after falling off the face of the planet (i.e. getting home-schooled) and hearing my favorite phrase, "Hey! Wow, you grew up!" Translated: "Hey! Wow, I noticed you got boobs!" Oh please, like I didn't know what that meant :-P
When I was a kid, I never thought much about growing up, what I would be, where I would go, what I would do. Even now, I get wrapped up in what is happening in the next month, the next week, the next 24 hours that the "big picture" begins to elude me continuously. And now that I'm what some would officially call an adult (ever since I had that birthday that shall remain unspoken), everything that went wrong as a kid has turned itself around for the most part! Kids go through everything that adults do, just with less experience and self-control. And the cycle just keeps on repeating until one day, you know what you're doing. (But by that time, you're old and everyone thinks they know better than you and miss out on your vast knowledge. Just a theory!
I mean, I'm still weird - but now it's "funny" or "spontaneous". I guess I still have a desire to be "cool" but now I just do what I do and people who like it hang around and people who don't, don't. So I don't notice them. I still do and say stupid things, but it's easier to recover (humor again...). I feel pretty confident I don't look like a boy anymore, so that's good. But I will admit, I still have this underlining desire to be important and approved of.
I shudder at the thought of disappointing anyone I know or being less than what someone expects me to be. I'm desperate to get things right the first time and live in terror of rejection. Always tip-toeing around the things that you want and/or need to say because one wrong move could be the end of everything. And the guessing game gives you the feeling of....vomiting. Yes, perfect description! I wonder if this continuous cycle will ever lead to the confidence to say and do what you are compelled to. Or will we forever be constrained by ourselves to wait until the very last moment, or be dehumanized by technology, only saying the difficult things when we're not faced with the look in someone's eyes. Or worse, miss opportunities you can never have again.
I don't know about you, but I think I'd like to keep building on the lessons of my youth, embrace the satire about me, face my rejections, and refuse to hide behind the false confidence of technology. ....said the girl who can't talk about feelings...on her blog.... :D THE IRONY!
Tanya
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