(no subject)
Junior high. Ohio History class. It's bits and pieces of memory. A note on my desk, anonymously telling me off. "You think you're so smart, and you're not." Signed from my EX-friends. I never figured out who it was from. I took it to heart that my friends were no longer my friends, and I quit them all and found new ones.
It broke my heart. It still breaks my heart. Especially when it affects the way I interact with people in new friendships even now, fucking 17 years later. I felt secure in the idea that I liked my friends and that they liked me. That one note ripped that security apart, and I don't trust the way I see people act because I misjudged so hard in the seventh grade. Bewildered and betrayed is how it feels, discovering that the reality of a situation doesn't match up with the vision of it I held. And so I distrust my vision of what is.
I didn't ask questions then, to find out who was behind it or why. I don't ask questions now, to confirm plans or define relationships or ask for an affirmation of someone's desire to have me around.
Because what if they say no. Because half the time *I* don't want to hang out with me. Because I don't believe I'm worth caring for.
Because my fears don't make sense. Of course people care about me. Of course I can walk into a bar and meet someone who has invited me for drinks and dancing. It's a simple thing to do. There's no reason I can't step through that door.
Except that a couple of kids did a fucked up thing to a sensitive girl seventeen years ago, and tonight I start to forgive myself for my reaction.
It broke my heart. It still breaks my heart. Especially when it affects the way I interact with people in new friendships even now, fucking 17 years later. I felt secure in the idea that I liked my friends and that they liked me. That one note ripped that security apart, and I don't trust the way I see people act because I misjudged so hard in the seventh grade. Bewildered and betrayed is how it feels, discovering that the reality of a situation doesn't match up with the vision of it I held. And so I distrust my vision of what is.
I didn't ask questions then, to find out who was behind it or why. I don't ask questions now, to confirm plans or define relationships or ask for an affirmation of someone's desire to have me around.
Because what if they say no. Because half the time *I* don't want to hang out with me. Because I don't believe I'm worth caring for.
Because my fears don't make sense. Of course people care about me. Of course I can walk into a bar and meet someone who has invited me for drinks and dancing. It's a simple thing to do. There's no reason I can't step through that door.
Except that a couple of kids did a fucked up thing to a sensitive girl seventeen years ago, and tonight I start to forgive myself for my reaction.