Throughout the month of May I will be taking on the 31 Days of Confessions challenge. I will be blogging every day about a different subject or question. You'll possibly get to know a lot about me!
Enjoy!
I tell myself that I loved High School; that they were the best times ever. I tell everyone else that too.
I don't know why.
The truth is, High School sucked. I think I rather enjoyed Year 7 but the memory of it seems to have clouded over the years. My family and I had moved into town six months before High School started. I was halfway through Grade 6 with a gaggle of wonderful friends when I was uprooted from all that to start again amongst a group of kids who had grown up together and were already in well-established friendship groups. I simply could not infilatrate or assimilate. I spent most of my time hanging out with kids younger than me...ones with horses! However, in Year 7 I managed to ease my way in with a group of girls who invited me to their parties and sleepovers and hung around with me at school. For some reason, at the beginning of Year 8 all that kind of went pear-shaped and I found myself totally alone at recess and lunchtime, feeling pretty bereft. One of the girls from the group was eventually ejected and so she found me and together we'd find a spot up on the hill, surrounded by some shrubs and we'd spend the afternoons reading novels and talking about books we enjoyed. That friend left the school at the end of the year and transferred to another school....and after that I had a single different friend per year.
People didn't hang around much. I don't know why.
I guess that due to the fact that I didn't have that one close friend that remained and stayed and I meant as much to her and she did to me, I learned to be pretty self-reliant. I learned not to get too close to people because they had a tendency to up and leave when circumstances presented themselves. I was especially hurt when it seemed that they'd leave me in the lurch for people who seemed a lot more exciting than me. I really didn't do that kind of hurt very well....
Now, as a woman in her 40's I do have my really close friends, however I'm not one to be in their faces all the time. I don't demand attention or affection; in fact I guess sometimes I possibly even come across as....distant? Holding people at arms length? Don't get me wrong! When I'm with my friends all is groovy, I love seeing them and enjoy their company but when we're not together rarely have that yearning that pleads "Oh I need my friend!" I'm happy with my own company and don't mind being alone.
So, I guess that's what High School taught me. I learned to be ok with being by myself because often, that's all I had.
Gosh, you just described me with my friendships in adulthood. I enjoy my friendships, getting together with our kiddos and our families, but I am not the type that needs to call a friend with every thing that happens in my life. And I am quite happy to head out to a coffee shop on my own to drink tea, journal and read :)
ReplyDeleteWhile I didn't have the leaving of friends in highschool, I just never really felt like I belonged in any particular group, and so I floated among a few and never really made deep connections with anyone. I know of highschool friends that still hang out now, 25 years later, but it hasn't been my experience at all.
Being ok with yourself and loving your own company were two important skills I learned in high school as well. They were important to me then and continue to be important to me now. :) Great post!
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