It's been, I don't know, a week since I posted anything. And that is because my life is uninspiring and boring and frankly rather sad.
Of course, you've heard all about that. I've explained how lame I am at least once in all of my previous posts. So I'm not going to dwell on that anymore than is necessary- I've quite milked the topic, and there's really not much more I can get out of it. I'll save those last few drops for myself.
Speaking of drops, I would have to say that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl who moves home for the summer and has only two or three half-jobs of minimum wage or less, no driver's license, and too much on her mind is dreadfully in want of a good, ugly cry.
Don't get me wrong, I hate crying. The reasons I cry are not a good thing, unless I'm watching British television or reading John Green, and then the reasons I cry are so good that they hurt. But every now and then you need to cry- it's as good a stress reliever as anything else.
Stress reliever, you ask? But you have no life, Sarah. How are you stressed?
Plenty of ways, I can assure you. Just suffice it to say that I've been depressed lately. And it's not the boy thing, it's more like the lonely-in-general thing. I mentioned in a previous post that I end up watching from the sidelines more often than not. I feel like that a lot right now, because every time I get on Facebook I see people who are doing things and being happy and having fun. I read a lot of posts where people talk about their kids. I read a lot of posts where people do things with their significant others or siblings or friends. I see pictures and jokes and I think, "Sarah, what prevents you from doing these things? Why is it that you don't have a life?"
There are a few reasons, again. One of them, probably the primary one, is the crippling shyness that has afflicted me since kindergarten. I had no problem being friendly in Joy School, especially not when my mother was the leader. It was kindergarten that scared the bejeezers out of me. We moved right before I started kindergarten, and my first year of school occurred in a small, old school building, two floors, made of stone, called Chancellor Street School, for grades K through 2. Grades 3 through 5 or 6 (I forget which) went to Goodnoe Elementary School. I went to Chancellor Street School and I attended a class taught by a lady named Mrs. Sautter (who scared the bejeezers out of me almost more than the whole idea of kindergarten put together, and whose real name I have no compunctions about using because I will probably never see her again). I sat next to a girl named Susanna A. (real name with no compunctions again) and she chattered in my ear almost constantly. I went to church that first Sunday and I met a girl who we'll call Perpetually Smiling, because I always felt like she was. She had my kindergarten teacher, but in the afternoon; that or she just had the other kindergarten teacher. I forget which. Her mother was my mother's Visiting Teaching companion, and later their family moved to Arizona, and until I went to college I never heard from Perpetually Smiling again. (Turns out she was in my freshman ward- lived in my building, in fact.)
But other than that, kindergarten was awful- I remember one day we were coloring picture frames, and we were supposed to take them home and glue our picture in, and I colored the part that would have been under the picture, and this snotty little boy named Nick (I think) goes, "YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO COLOR THAT PART," and I go "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" because I was probably the biggest crybaby in the history of ever.
First grade was a little better with the crippling shyness- this year, Perpetually Smiling might have been in my actual class, because I remember having a playdate with her. (A rare thing, as regular readers may remember.) I had an AWESOME teacher named Mrs. Cattani. She was seriously the best teacher ever. I got slightly more used to the creaky old halls of Chancellor Street School and I wrote a story (published by our Young Authors deal where we each wrote a story and they made it into a book) entitled "How Paul Got Lost," which was about my just-born baby brother, the Angel, getting himself lost in the supermarket. My work was stellar and my illustrations were even better. I was a true literary genius, at the tender age of six. My mother made us a cake at the end of the year that looked like a book, and had all of our names on it.
Second grade was even a little better than first grade, but not by much- I had a cool teacher named Mrs. Lowe. It was the year that they sold Chancellor Street School to some company and moved K, 1, and 2 to Goodnoe Elementary. I had a class in the super-cool second-grade hallway, and we had some cool stuff happen in that class. There was a boy who was blind, and he had the white cane and the Braille machine and everything Nicest boy ever, name of Patrick. I got my first pair of glasses and lost them a week later. I began ballet, gymnastics, and karate lessons; I hated karate, I loved gymnastics, and I REALLY loved ballet. We learned to write in cursive. Mrs. Lowe put shaving cream on our desks; men's shaving cream, because it smelled funny. We wrote cursive letters on our desks in shaving cream. We never had Christmas parties, only Winter celebrations, because there were Jewish kids and kids who celebrated Kwanzaa and every kind of kid in our school. Adults were educated and intelligent (because the two concepts are not mutually inclusive) and the kids were friendly; you could ride your bike on the street and not get kidnapped. We lived on the same street as the public library. We lived in a little brick house, rented from the Blakes, across the street to the left. The Beast threw his basketball and his baseball against the neighbor's garage to practice; her name was Desiree and she might have complained about it to my parents. We lived directly across from the Kobyluchs, who were British. The Beauty was maybe a little older than their younger kids, Thomas and Emma, and we went over to play sometimes.
Third grade was awful because we moved from Bucks County to York County that summer. I remember moving into the blue house in Red Lion and seeing the girls across the street, playing outside in the summer heat, and thinking, "Maybe one of them will be my friend." Not so, Sarah. You were looking in the wrong direction. We moved in and I remember thinking how BIG it was- far bigger than the brick house in Bucks County or the townhouse in Cherrywood Drive or the apartment I don't remember. I remember going to school and meeting people and wondering if any of them would be my friend; when nobody was openly forthcoming, the shyness returned in full force.
In December of that year, I began violin lessons through the school. My father arranged it. He taught me in addition to what I was being taught at school. Through my lessons, which occurred once a week on Day Three (not always Wednesday, mind you) at two in the afternoon. There were three other kids in my lesson: some person who played the cello, a boy who played the violin, and a girl I eventually came to know as the Tuba-Viola Girl.
I was not properly friends with the Tuba-Viola Girl until April or May. Then I learned that she rode my bus and in fact lived in my neighborhood. Then when we figured out where our houses were, it turned out that she lived directly behind me. Our backyards touch from end to end. After that, I had a friend. Even though she was in neither my third-grade class nor my fourth-grade class, we were still very good friends. She came over to my backyard in the summer and we played soccer. (I had been enrolled in local soccer teams.) She came inside sometimes and we just talked about things. She tried to make me clean my family's messy, toy-filled basement. I liked her unequivocally, and she made no judgments on my shyness or my strangeness or my love of books or the fact that I was ridiculously awful at soccer. We practiced our instruments together occasionally.
Anyway, you get my point. My shyness gradually decreased until junior high, when it shot up again owing to the increased number of people in the school. Seventh and eighth grade were the lowest parts of my life. Ninth grade was a little better. People were more mature and less judgmental. After that I had band, and my sociality skyrocketed.
But I am not good at making friends. And I am still extremely shy. I often find it painful to hold conversations with people I don't know very well. As I gradually get to know someone better the pain eases and often fades entirely. I have problems calling people on the phone. I am always at a loss for conversation.
I wish I had been friendlier as a kid- I can fake it pretty good now, even when I don't feel like being friendly, but there's no replacement for genuine friendliness. It's something I wish I could go back and fix just a little bit. Not entirely- I wouldn't want my life to change completely, but I would make myself a little easier to talk to, a little easier to hold up my end of a conversation, a little easier not to feel nauseated when I have to talk to one person or a whole roomful of people. I like people and I want them to like me, but I'm not very good at showing it.
I guess this is one of those pieces of bread that has the nasty seeds and things in it, but maybe a dollop of jam will come my way soon. I'm just stuck in a little rut, that's all. Don't mind me.
No comments:
Post a Comment