Hey there,
I hope everyone had a good weekend. I do not have writer's block, but I have blogger's block. Even as I write this, I have no idea what to blog about, no clue. Any ideas?
I think it's because I am still working on the YA Spotlight project right now, needing to get dishes done because I put them off all weekend because of commitments. The highlight had to be Sunday. My husband and I stopped by the birthday party of a family friend, someone I've known since I was little. I didn't get a chance to see her at my wedding reception, and I really just wanted to see her and say hi, so we went and stayed all of about an hour or so, just long enough to pass our birthday wishes to the birthday girl, speak to a couple of the people who worked with my parents and the sister of the birthday girl. It was nice to see them, and the fact that she was 90, made it feel like it was something I had to do.
Of course, my husband felt out of place, and so did I, a bit, only because we crashed the party. Yes, I admit it, we weren't invited, but I really wanted to see both the birthday girl and her sister while there was still a chance to do so. We didn't stay and eat because we weren't invited, we felt it would be wrong. (However, as we said goodbye, the birthday girl told us we could have eaten anyway and took great care to make sure we were okay, which is one of the reasons I have always liked and respected her.)
This visit was also hard for me because it made me revisit/remember some difficult times in my life, such as when both of my parents lost their jobs (the first time) when I was in grade school. My life changed quite a bit after that time, even though I stayed in the same parochial school, even though I didn't want to stay there. See, I didn't have a choice about being there, so I figured I'd control what I could. Just because I was forced to go to school there, it didn't mean I had to be friends with them if I didn't want to.
Of course, because it was a parochial school, the teachers couldn't leave well enough alone and tried to force me to socialize. That had the opposite effect. I closed off even more. I honestly did prefer to eat my lunches alone and did my best to do so, even when they tried to have kids sit down and eat with me.
I know my parents thought they were doing what was best for me, but I wonder what school would have been like had I attended public school for 7th and 8th grade. Would I have met some of the people I associated with earlier? Would it have changed who I hung around when I got to high school? Would it have changed what I chose to study when I got to college? Would I have still met my husband, or would that have turned out differently too?
But, since I can't change anything, I don't waste my time about what ifs, unless I'm trying to figure out a storyline.
What about you, do you ever stop to consider what ifs?
Like most teens, I thought I was the only one in the universe in jr hight. I often wonder now if I had just SPOKEN UP and TOLD someone what was going on about the bullying, would things have been better?
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I've reconnected with people I knew from that period of my life via FaceBook, and am planning to 'crash' the reunion next month (I switched schools and didn't go to HS with them). Those who were snotty back then are now gushing about my books privately to me...we'll see if they actually talk to me face to face. There ARE people I want to see, the ones I considered my friends 30 years ago. I'm going to it with one of those people, so it's not like I'm simply showing up; I have an invitation.
But it should be interesting, should anyone bring up the topic of why I transeferred out of that school system...
Actually, I don't think it would have made a difference if you did. In fact, I think it would have made the bullying worse. The only way I got it to stop was when I started fighting back, and not just good for a girl.
ReplyDeleteBy the time I graduated 8th grade, there were only 20 kids in my class. Sure, I did go to high school with some of them, but I didn't forge any friendships that actually lasted, save 1 and even now we seem so different that talking via a facebook chat got real old, real quick.
I was supposed to attend an impromptu reunion of my grade school class this past Saturday, but as the day got nearer and nearer, I began to wonder what I really had in common with them and the more Facebook messages and posts I read, the more I realized that I didn't really like those people then, and that wasn't going to change.
Sure, there were some of the guys that I would run into over the years and we'd talk and stuff, but never really go out of our way to hang out or contact each other.
So, as the reunion drew near, I began to wonder what the point of going was. Then I got lucky and something I had committed to previously was scheduled for that day and I took the opportunity to chicken out.
I guess the biggest problem I have is that I spent an entire year in front of these people completely depressed and no one really knew or gave a damn. I lost a really close friend of mine at the beginning of senior year of HS (I had quite a few classes with these people) and all those people who I had considered my friends, paid zero attention to me beyond the classroom.
It's said when the teachers of these classes saw how I was and talked to me about it, but those who were my friends were completely oblivious to what I was going through and when I finally did speak up to someone, they said, "Oh why didn't you tell me?". What, the fact that I hung out with this guy at lunch and in between classes as often as possible wasn't a clue? Another "friend" who I have known since I was 5, said, "Who Cares," when I said that he died. How the hell was I supposed to feel like opening up to her?
It's weird, a part of me is still so angry about it. I'm not sure why either. It was a long time ago, and I should be able to be around these people without thinking about it, but for some reason, I can't think about some of them without thinking about that hurt. I wish it didn't sting so much.