Moving on.

I got a real surprise on Saturday afternoon. A friend I hadn't seen for 30 years arrived at another mutual friends place just to surprise me. It was wonderful to see her and we hugged and talked like we never were able to in High School. Back then it seemed that teenagers weren't really as affectionate to each other as they are these days. Now I see High Schoolers hug each other whenever they meet for the day, whenever they say goodbye, whenever they're happy about something......or even just because. I'm all for public displays of affection. God knows how much I needed it way back when. Maybe if I had've given and received (especially received) more hugs back in those days I wouldn't have ended up pregnant at 19 - the result of my desperate need to be hugged, wanted, validated and loved.

So here's a timely word of advice from Life At Another Level....parents, hug your kids.....especially you Dads out there who have teenage daughters. They need to know you think they're beautiful and special. They need to be hugged, or else they're going to seek it from someone else and wind up in all sorts of mess.

Trust me. I know.

Anyway, this headed off in a direction I never intended it to! Rein it back in!

I've been wrestling with my anxiety levels for about a month now. I know that most of it has to do with wall-to-wall birthdays and celebrations, too much of the wrong foods that stress my post-eating-disorder brain, marriage issues, too many situations where I have had to deal with people and organising venues and food for people. Stupid me booked a Tupperware Party on Saturday. The party will be on May 18 at my place. The thought of it makes me super-anxious.

Anyway...this friend from 30 years ago also came down this way for an informal high school reunion. A number of us meet at one of the local pubs every couple of months and have a meal, some drinks and some highly inappropriate conversation.

If it hadn't been for this friend, I wouldn't have gone. I was only there at the pub because she was there. I wanted to catch up with her some more. Our time was limited and we hadn't seen each other for 30 years. However, I didn't really have the greatest time. When we all first started to get together it was fun and exciting, the stories were funny and new. I started off really happy to be connected to this bunch, as I wasn't really included in with their group in High School and thought that with maturity and the passage of time we were finally relating on a different level - separate to the High School social strata. In High School I felt like I was invisible. Not popular but not hated....just ignored. It's a lonely place to be. Now I am feeling the same way.

But then again, I am having trouble with anxiety. I don't know what to say to these people now that we have done all the, "What have you done since 1984?" and "Can you remember Mr So-and-So?" or "What about when ****** happened?" I was never part of their parties in High School, or their social groups, or their hook-ups. I was invisible.....and now I feel invisible again. They're not a group I can turn to now that my marriage is in the toilet. It seems that members of the group are now getting into relationships with each other but, as with High School this will not happen to me....for reasons I have not mentioned in this blog.

Once again I am on the edges; a listener and watcher. As a listener and watcher you hear things and see things that make you realise that things haven't moved on much from High School. They'll all still bitch and gossip about each other - the two separate groups that happened on Saturday night was very telling and I watched and heard a lot of snippy things happen from both groups. I didn't like it. It made me anxious and sad.

I don't think I'll go to the next get-together. I don't want to put myself back in that lonely place again. I'll stay in touch with my friend J.A.L, because I genuinely want to stay connected and be a friend.  I'll stay in touch with MH because I really think she needs a friend too. I didn't really know until now how much she struggles.

But, for my own sanity, I think I'll finally let the High School years stay where they belong.