Being 15 all over again

It's really kind of weird for me to be feeling like I did when I was 14, 15 years old.  If anyone else was like me, you always had the feeling in high school that you weren't quite cool enough to hang out with the popular kids.  Maybe you were poor and couldn't afford the "in" clothes, or perhaps you were too chubby to be accepted by the cheerleaders.  Maybe it was your unstylish car, or that your parents were religious freaks who kept you locked up at night.  For whatever reason, I know that there were a lot more of us misfits than there were of the "cool" kids.

 

Here I am in my 30s, and supposedly a fairly put-together kind of gal.  I thought I was beyond feeling the hurt and insecurity that can come with nonacceptance, but I was wrong.  No matter how old you are, someone can say or do something that wounds.

 

For me, it was discovering that people I considered friends... well, don't really like me.  It was a staggering realization.  I mean, even though these are Internet friends, and not the in-person friends who know me inside and out, it still hurts.  And I really feel stupid-- just like I did when I was 15-- for caring what people think of me.

 

I guess it's really that, I DON'T care what everyone thinks of me.  But I do care what my friends think, since they are the ones with whom I share my life.  And to find out that people that I considered friends don't actually give a flip, well, there's a ball of anger and hurt roiling in my belly.  But that's okay; I'll do what I always do:

 

"No, no, dear; we don't talk about those kinds of things; it's just not done.  You keep smiling, then talk about how heavy her biscuits were when you get home."

 

You just gotta love old-fashioned Southern repression.