1959
During my second semester, freshman year, I met two girls in gym class, each of whom had transferred to our suburban high school from separate neighborhoods, located on the North side of the city. As Susie and Jamie, who'd happened to become next-door neighbors, offered lots of good natured fun, which felt natural to me, we three began to seek each other out, frequently. Though I can't remember introducing them to Debi—maybe in the cafeteria during lunch, maybe not—it didn't take long before we four were enjoying each other's company, on weekends.
As to gym class, our Fall semester was devoted to indoor sports, and for some reason volleyball comes to mind, maybe because I'd felt clumsy, having never played, before. Once wind-swept snow, which piled up during our frigid Midwestern winter, turned to slush, and the school year eased it's way toward Spring, I remember playing golf, which proved new to me, too.
If you ask me to name what else comes to mind about Phys Ed in high school, I'd reply: Standing in the line up with my classmates, worrying about when I'd be chosen by those who'd been designated as team captains. Hating the blue jumpsuits that everyone wore, which made me feel more shapeless than ever. And showering, en mass, because baring my body next to girls whose preteen skinniness had developed enviable curves, exacerbated my negative attitude concerning my physicality; thus did insecurity exaggerate my connection to modesty.
At some point during the year, Debi introduced Susie, Jamie and me to the twins, Jen and Jackie, and before the semester's end, my social club's founding sisterhood agreed to expand our membership to include my new friends, each of whom seemed as eager for acceptance as me. In fact, I imagine that some degree of angst-ridden insecurity proves true of teens both globally and historically. Anyway, sometime later, Susie's cousin, Robin, whose family had joined the migration of apartment dwellers, who'd scraped and saved to rise to home ownership in suburbia, became one of our classmates, and much to her delight and ours, the sisterhood voted to adopt her into the social safety of the inner sanctum, as well.
2014
As reflective introspection offers my mind insight into experiences, which proved memorable during high school, I can offer you hindsight's view of changes that caused my character traits to bend this way or that when my need of social acceptance and fear of rejection tied my self confidence into knots. While swimming up stream, I'd been blind to this fact: As long as my self confidence felt bullied by insecurity, anxiety gagged the self assertive portion of my voice, which had rung out, loud and clear before I'd unknowingly charged myself guilty of causing my mother's misery in the aftermath of Janet's death. Had we known of the far-reaching effects of trauma to the psyche, resulting in need for EMDR to heal the brain from PTSD, the depth my self-demeaning attitude, to which I'd been blind, would have been nipped in the bud. That's not to say that children, whose experiences are less traumatic develop no issues with self esteem. I mean, those bus rides from hell and the fact that party invitations were no longer addressed to me proved both distressing and disorienting. However, the fact that my subconscious had swallowed my voice (other than please and thank you) suggests my inability to cry out for help whenever life felt overwhelming distressing, so I smiled by day, cried silently at night ... and scratched to get out of my skin ...
Though that's all the time I can devote to writing, today, you might want to glance back at yesterday's post in order to consider insights added during the editing process. I mean, hopefully, you've come to accept 'editing after posting' as being 'my thing' ☺️
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