My first memory of high school is of a friendly face. A smile suggesting glad to meet you, Annie, welcome to my life.
It's one thing for a preteen to walk into a new school where well established, jr. high social clicks are firmly established; it's another when everyone is tossed into the stew, starting fresh at a school new to all. Why didn't anyone tell me that? Gosh, had I known the ropes, my brain would have been less apt to tie itself into knots, and life would have been a breeze ... Well okay ... if not a breeze at least not such a series of shocking hard knocks.
Anyway, here I am, walking into my first high school class on the first day of my freshman year. Now, I'm taking a seat near the front of the room, because if there's one thing I don't want to do it's to get lost in the shuffle and find myself invisible, like during the last four years of my life.
Then after making myself semi comfortable, I look to my right and see a dark haired girl with a sweet, welcoming smile, sitting next to me. And I'm so happy to feel acknowledged by a classmate's natural warmth that my smile beams in response, and from that moment of connection, a life long friendship is born.
Just as with any two women at ease, Debbi and I chat each other up until the bell, indicating the official start to the rigors of high school, rings, and thus does this new chapter of my life begin on a positive note. By now I know where Debbi went to eighth grade, and she know the same of me. In addition to knowing something new, I feel something new, stirring deep inside. In fact, I sense a wondrous change, suggesting that I am not—alone. Better yet, I sense that, from now on, each step taken forward may lead toward a door where I'll experiment with aspects of life, dreamed of but not yet experienced for myself.
So, here I sit, sensing that all I need to feel happy is not to fear whatever lies in wait behind each closed door. And without knowing more than that, I sense that every step taken toward each next chapter of my life will require one reaction from me ... that being to muster the courage to open each door and tip toe far enough forward to see what opportunity may offer up, next. Then, after summoning the sum of my strengths to respond to whatever beckons with my positively focused attitude of wonderment intact, I'll aim to keep moving forward by embracing less fear, more golly miss molly—what have we here! And so, though my experiences in jr. high had knocked the stuffings out of my self confidence, kind of like the scarecrow in Oz, my encounters with peers, preceding our move, had provided me with the promise of leadership, based in self trust.
As life's earliest experiences had rooted deeply into my brain, I had the where-with-all to cultivate a high level of self esteem, which calls upon courage to overcome fear each time one's path approaches a fork in the road, where another new door appears. And as the sum of Annie's strengths inspires her instinct of curiosity to arise, she'll feel inclined to take chances whenever her fearful side longs to shrink back, clinging to some semblance of false safety, instead. Though it's true that Annie's life will provide no wild ride, you'll watch her choose to dive, eyes wide open, into the deep end where adventure awaits, much more often than watching our girl wallowing around, ducking her head in shallow waters, over long.
Though this next memory is quite faded, I believe it was Debbi who, within the next couple of weeks, made Annie aware of The Club's interest in her. As inclusion into this popular click had climbed to the top of this pleaser's list of unmet needs, I'm sure Annie went to sleep that night praying to pledge allegiance to this group before having a clue as to whether their values fit hers to a tee. You see, each lonely heart that adheres to the path where award winning pleasers develop leave thoughts of leadership behind for this reason: Fitting in becomes everything. So what remains to be seen, as Annie steps into this lioness den, is what will take place after she has been given the once over. Will these characters deem this newly crowned pleaser worthy of entry or will another door slam in her face with no thought that rejection might cast her hopes into the winds of misery, yet again? If the ayes have it, Annie feels like a winner; if naysayers win the day, our girl feels like a loser ... at least that's her fourteen-year old take on whether her life, over these next four years, will have merit or not ...
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Annie, our girl has developed a mindset that hovers fearfully close to the edge of a cliff where if she makes one wrong move—you know, like she did with Joseph—the line, connecting her with happiness, will be cut. And as long as this subconscious mindset haunts her, Annie will worry over her life raft being cast adrift, and over the falls she'll go ...
