backyard crowing
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just jane
i remember...
i've always known i was an outsider. a solitary, easily entertained, loner. it is only in recent years that i have come to embrace my solitude, consider it 'normal', and peacefully exist with the knowledge that it is okay to be who i am, and who i am keeps to herself. not in a self-absorbed, i-don't-want-to-help-you manner, (at least not most of the time), but in a way that is jane. just jane.
"just harry."
i remember in elementary school i was having a time of it one day when i found myself telling a group of kids, "I'm just trying to make friends!" during recess.
a classmate who made fun of me (and was also known among our girl scout troop for kicking her mother's butt, literally) retorted, "you're not going to make friends by going away from everybody!" or something of the like. that night when i went home i told my mother all about it, and about how angry i was and how it wasn't fair, yadda yadda yadda. she then surprised and infuriated me with a, "well, she's right, you don't make friends by hanging out by yourself." that my mother and this evil child agreed with each other seemed completely impossible. mom might as well have taken out a sharpie and written "Bad Guy" across her forehead.
when i think about that day, and compare it with my recent past, i understand that yes, i am a recluse, but when i've had a rough time--with anything--i recoil with additional rapidity. i know now that i didn't want a friend that day, i wanted space and time to reflect on my bothersome social situation, and that doesn't happen without distancing oneself from the problem or the people. in my case the people were my classmates, who i couldn't get away from in such a tiny community. a small town would kill me; i've got to have my privacy, and time to mull over whatever is floating around in my head.
i've come to the conclusion that as an elementary schooler, i and the rest of the kids would always take advantage of our thirty minutes of daily recess to socialize and play, but that day was not a day of play for me, and they didn't understand it. my mother didn't understand it. infact, even i didn't understand it, because i didn't know what i really wanted, or how to express it, or how to believe in it. only a dorky kid would pass up a daily chance to talk and play with other kids, and i didn't want to be labeled that dork, i was already too many other labels. those labels are probably what drove me to solitude that day in the first place. in elementary school i was taught to make friends, that such a goal was respectable. but i wasn't in the mood to make friends that day, and i didn't know how to say so, or feel comfortable about myself saying so.
then there was misty. misty moved into my apartment complex soon after my parents split up, and she was as talkative as ever. she said the word 'supposedly' enough times to make me laugh, but every time was genuine; she was genuinely skeptical of everything. i had some fun with her, but she wasn't the sort of person i wanted to be around all of the time, and most days if she wanted to play, i would say i had homework or something. in honesty, i did have homework most everyday, but i used it as a good excuse not to hang out with her. i don't really know why i didn't want to hang with her more often, but maybe it was because my mother wanted me to have friends in the apartment complex, people i could go to that weren't from where my dad was living, which was where all of my life had revolved around. i was dealing with my parents' divorce at that point, another reason why i wouldn't want much company. when my life is falling apart, i like to be alone to figure things out by myself.
anyhow, i haven't seen misty in years, and i believe she moved. i hope she's doing well, but i don't regret spending little time with her, even though my mom had a great desire to see us befriend each other. i was doing my thing, coping in the manner i knew how, and i never entirely shut out the world, or friends.
and the moral of the story is...
"It's your life, so grieve how you want to,
live how you want to
be who you want to"
or something like that. you be the judge.
- Thursday, Jun. 01, 2006
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