September 19, 2015-More Friends- Part 2

   In high school I sometimes hung out with Mary and her friends at their table in the cafeteria. They were a year ahead of me. I think that she was a part of the Peer Club that would look after under classmates. They all seemed nice. I just wish that I hadn’t been so afraid to talk to them. I only did so a little.

   Mary invited me to her graduation party where I found out that she also had a crush on Don Mattingly. Someone gave her an 8x10 photo of him as a gift. It would have been good if I had gotten to know her and the other girls better.

   She is one of my Facebook friends as are some of my other former friends and classmates. I don’t really associate with any of them on that site though. I have sent them birthday wishes occasionally. I’m not that interested in social networking that way or even in person. I’m a very strange girl.

   A tiny part of me disagrees with this and was sort of hoping that I could make a connection with some of the girls that I’ve met at DD concerts and events. Of course, I don’t feel as if this could ever truly happen. I have done so a little bit with a couple of them but even this feels awkward to me.

   Tracey and I cut classes one afternoon to go down the shore – Asbury Park.  She borrowed her sister’s car, a Fiero, for this. That’s the only time that I’ve ever done something bad like that during my school days. I only got detention twice and the one time it was the whole class in high school. I can’t remember why this happened to me in the 5^th grade.

   Tracey was a big Springsteen fan. I’m pretty sure she had a crush on him. We didn’t really hang out that much and it was mainly at school. She was nice; I wish that we could have had a closer friendship but I guess that my social anxiety was partially to blame for this.

   Julia and I went to the Westfield Theater to see The Manhattan Project but I don’t really remember anything about that movie. Mom took the 2 of us and Mike to Woodbridge Mall. Julia ran up the down escalator there. Mom bought her a nice pair of jeans that day.

   She rode her bike over to our house one day. We drove her home. I only remember being at her host families house once or twice; I think that it was in Roselle.

   We mostly only hung out together in school though and she seemed closer to a few other girls in our class. I am glad that we were friends and not just because I got the chance to go to Germany and stay with her family. I would have never been able to afford anything but what I had to pay for- the airline ticket and souvenirs-otherwise.

   My 2- 3 year friendship in the late 90s with Lynn was nice; it’s a shame that we drifted apart. We had sent holiday cards to each other for a few years after that. We had a lot of fun going to garage sales and flea markets.  We sometimes did arts and crafts like decoupage. She liked stuffed animals and stickers too.  I gave her my small Friend Care Bear.

   We went to the Flemington Outlet Center with a couple of friends of hers. Matt and I went to her birthday party. I gave her a Gund brand doggie which she loved. She had a pet ferret but I don’t remember its name.

    Gina and Roy were our family friends. They used to live somewhere in North Jersey before moving to a house across the street from us.

   Our parents went with them to a mall in that area one day in 1976. That is when they bought our Shetland sheepdog pup Rusty from a pet store there. They had an adorable doggie named Barky. I am pretty sure that it was part Border collie.

 Mom said that Roy and Gina saw Grease in the movie theater at least 10 times. I liked the big scrapbook of 8x10s of stars that they had in the attic room of their nice house. I wish that I could remember who was in this book. In the early 90s, Mike and I started collecting photos of our favorite stars too.

  Roy and Dad worked in GM. They used to drive there together. Early one morning (it was still dark), Roy was hit and killed by a car when crossing the street to get to our apartment. This was very upsetting. That was in 1980 or 1981, I think.

     

 

 

 

 

June 4- Anxiety Issue

People would think that I am a complete freak if they knew some of the things that make me anxious. Just hearing the phone ring makes me feel this way. I really don’t like talking on the phone. I can’t remember the last time that I felt comfortable doing so, probably grade school, which sounds so pathetic. I mostly let the answering machine kick in and if it’s really important, like mom’s pharmacy, I pick it up.

   When Cindy and Jessica visited their grandparents- our next- door neighbors Mr. and Mrs. K- I always waited for them to call me. So even when I was a kid I had a bit of phone phobia. Kelly was the only person that I wasn’t afraid to call.

    Dad definitely didn’t like when I was on the phone with her or when we hung out together. He didn’t mind Cindy and Jessica though because he was friends with their grandparents.

   I was afraid to call Cindy in PA to ask her if anyone had found the pretty anklet that Kathy gave me. It must’ve fallen off when we were playing Frisbee in the field across the street from their house or elsewhere during her graduation party.

   I was so nervous when I finally did call there. Her other grandma who lived with them answered the phone. She said that no one had found my anklet which was disappointing.

   My brother still teases me about one of the boys that had been at that party, saying that he was throwing the Frisbee to me a lot because he liked me; I don’t think so. No cute boys would ever look at a plain girl like me. I had the big glasses back then which made me look even more unattractive.

   I’m certain that if my Aunt Ann knew that the real reason that I didn’t go to her daughter Missy’s wedding was because I was feeling very anxious that she would be very disappointed in me. I told mom to tell her that I was feeling really sick.

    Well, that was partly true- sick in the head from the tension. I can’t even feel comfortable around my own family; that’s extremely pathetic. They aren’t monsters so why should I be afraid of them?

   I know that a big part of the reason that I feel so anxious around them is that I feel like a total loser and that I don’t belong with successful, happy people such as them. This is true in other cases too like when I’m at concerts and hear people talking about their jobs, kids, social live, etc...

   My anxiety issues probably have been around since I was a little kid. I backed out of doing the baton twirling in our town’s parade in the mid-1970s- Bicentennial of 1976, I think. I was too afraid plus kept telling myself that I wasn’t any good at it.

   Mike and I still feel really bad about not answering the door when Dad’s Uncle Nick came over to visit one day. We hid in the sky blue room until he left. That would have been the last time that we saw him before he died soon afterwards- late 80s? 

   We always got him either a flannel shirt or handkerchiefs as Christmas gifts. He would give Mike and me $1.00 each time that he visited but he’d hand both bills to me and say “Give it to him”.

   It was so mean that I didn’t even acknowledge Uncle Nick when he waved and said hi to mom and me when we were near our town’s store. He was sitting on the steps of the senior center. I pretended that I hadn’t even seen him. That was in the late 90s, after he had a major stroke that affected his speech just like grandma.

   Uncle Nick was my godfather. He was a Marine and a Vietnam War vet. He taught us such life lessons as “Look both ways before crossing the street”, “Don’t talk with your mouth full”, and “Don’t sit too close to the TV, you’ll ruin your eyesight.”

    I do feel guilty about avoiding both uncles and other people but I just can’t help it. It’s like an automatic response. Most people want to make connections with others but I always have feelings of anxiety even just thinking about doing so.

   Obviously, I haven’t totally isolated myself and have been in relationships so I’m not a complete freak. I have never truly felt comfortable around most people though and haven’t in a very long time.

    I was too scared to join clubs in high school. I was in the Service one but only for half a year. I worked in the bookstore sometimes. My teacher wanted me to join her Spanish Club. I was very good in that class. She was disappointed that I did not do this and also that I didn’t take a 3^rd year of that language.

   She liked my Easter project so much that she hung it up in her classroom. I should have never even used that drawing of bunnies that I did as a kid for this. I was very stupid for being afraid to ask her to return it to me. I redrew it eventually, but it wasn’t as nice as the original.  

    I’m trying not to think about all that I’ve missed out on and the regrets that I have thanks to my fears and anxieties. It’s not healthy mentally to dwell on these. My mind does seem to drift back to them a lot though.

   I have done some strange things to avoid socialization. I pretended that I had fallen asleep when I was at a party with my boyfriend in either 1999 or 2000. I could hear people talking about 2 shows that I liked back then- “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “The X-Files”. Part of me wished that I hadn’t been too afraid to join in on this conversation.

    I could have seen Blondie when they were performing at a festival event in Clark 3 or 4 years ago but I didn’t think that I could handle being around the large crowd that surely turned up for this. Smokey Robinson was at a balloon festival in Readington which is a little past Somerville, I think. I was too afraid to drive there.  I really wish that I had been able to overcome my anxieties for both of these events.

   Normals would probably say that I need to get over my low self-esteem and anxiety issues and move on by getting a job and trying to be a part of society. I know this, but they aren’t in my head so they don’t realize how much of a struggle this is.

   They might say “Stop making excuses” too. Would they think that I am being self-centered in a way also for even being too afraid to do volunteer work somewhere?

   Surely Amy would say that I have been doing so well lately with my anxiety issues, giving all those concert experiences as an example. I can only give myself minimal credit for that. These are just fun activities that are more like fantasyland and not the reality of having a job and friends. 

 

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Prom Time

I saw a report on the news last night about proms and it just brought back some unpleasant memories of my junior and senior proms. I kind of wish that I hadn't even gone to both of them. I didn't have a boyfriend so I had to be set up by friends of the family. I don't even remember if I was even that thrilled about going- maybe I only did so because I didn't want to feel like I missed out on these events.

Junior prom 1986- our family friend Paula set me up with a classmate of hers. She was a year ahead of me. His name was Billy and he looked a little like Duckie from Pretty In Pink. The prom song was Phil Collins' One More Night. A girl friend of his went with a classmate of mine and most of the night the two of them talked. I can't even remember if I danced with Billy. I might have but just for a bit.

Senior prom 1987- I went with the son of a coworker of my mother. He was in his early 20's or maybe it was closer to mid. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable the whole night. An aquaintance of mine said that he was cute and I think I did dance with him for like a minute. The song was Bon Jovi's Never Say Goodbye. There was a get together at the school afterwards but I was feeling like crap and we only stayed about 10 minutes. I was so glad when the night was over.

My dresses from these events were in my aunt's attic for many years. I think that I told her that she could take them to the thrift shop eventually. The junior year one was like a Southern Belle style. I think that the brand was Jessica McClintock or something like that. It was pink. The senior year one was like a long, sleeveless evening gown and was black. I looked at the pictures in my album recently and was thinking that I look ridiculous especially because of my hairstyle. It was short and very high both times.

Part of me wishes that I had a real boyfriend in high school and that I could have enjoyed myself at these events but another part of me is sticking with the "Proms are so stupid" belief. I guess that if you were popular and/or liked high school then prom time was a special event. I was a complete dork back then and still am. I really hate even thinking about my high school days but sometimes such memories pop up into my head.