1212 HIGH SCHOOL ...FRESHMAN YEAR Part 1

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' ☺️

1211 EXCLUDED—STUNNED—INCLUDED—CLUELESS

1958
With no clue as to why this core group of girls has included me amongst 'the chosen', I attend our first club meeting, which convenes in someone's well-appointed, finished basement, feeling deeply perplexed.  Actually, I'm more than perplexed.  So great is my disbelief at being included that I feel disoriented.  I mean, other than my new friend, Debi, who sits next to me in first period English, there's not one face in the room that I can connect to a name.  So, I can't figure out why these girls, who know nothing of me, have collectively waved this magic wand of inclusion over my head.

If you think to ask:  Well, did you know any more about them than they knew of you?  I'd reply.  Nope.

If next you ask:  Well, if you knew nothing about them, why join them?  I'd reply:  Are you kidding?  I was flabbergasted at being amongst those selected instead of rejected!  These girls were cool!  So cool, in fact, that the Chatty Cathy part of my personality proved pretty quiet while in their company, because I'd feared saying or doing anything that might clue them into the fact (?) that, having chosen a girl who was not cool—at all—had been a huge mistake!

During that first semester, here's what I learned about girlfriends that reinforced the shyness adopted by my psyche after my self image had burned to a crisp and my self confidence had succumbed to smoke on those bus rides, which had cast me into the fires of preteen hell:  Just as boys could pummel vulnerability, girls could smile at you, one minute, and talk smack behind your back, the next.  None of that made sense to me!  Having been excluded for years, I'd had time on my own to define friendship differently!

Gosh, from the outside looking in, the popular set had always seemed so happy, mutually supportive and tight.  Once I'd been welcomed into the inner sanctum, I'd witness this surprising scenario, time and again:  'For some unknown reason, 'this group' seemed uptight whenever 'that group' walked in …

This division made no sense to me, at all!  I mean, weren't we all each other's best friends in thick and thin?

Reflection suggests that my mental state of naïveté had lots to learn about the ways that friendship is undermined by power struggles born of human nature's two-faced, back stabbing jealousies, right?  As you shall see, sleep over parties, which I'd thought would offer only friendship and fun could turn dark as fast as the collective mindset of a group, like the bullies on the bus, suddenly switches from nice to not ...

If you ask why I didn't think to share my perceptions, openly, I'd reply:  By the age of fourteen, my fear of rejection had suffered three strikes:  First after Janet's death, next on the bus and then during junior high.

Once fear of rejection had suffered three strikes, my defense system felt so shocked to find me standing in the batter's box, again, that my self assertive voice choked, and having lost sight of my social self confidence, every leadership trait—which had emoted so naturally from within my five-year old core when my sure footed graces had wiped tears away from the faces of children in kindergarten—experienced a mind bending change.  Thank goodness, reflective insight, concerning unprocessed changes, opened my mind to consciously review this string of interconnected misperceptions, which has been in serious need of re-evaluation since I'd felt adrift from my socially secure self at the age of eleven.

Once those bus rides, collided with my exclusion at my new school, my social self confidence felt buried alive within an avalanche of rejection.  And with no clue that my voice had been gagged by huge lumps of undiagnosed PTSD—which had festered within my subconscious from the age of three—I was unable to express my needs or distress, aloud, suggesting why my personal strengths felt hog-tied for years.  With no voice (other than please and thank you) to speak up for me, I grew up accepting confusion as a normal state of mind.  Oy.

As long as denial's smokescreens smothered clarity of thought, I remained blind to my unidentified fear of exclusion.  Since any degree of inclusion eased my distress, silencing my needs seemed golden for decades to come.  Thus, unbeknownst to me, it was the disoriented state of my psyche that breathed life into the consummate pleaser, whose cheerful demeanor served the needs of others to the exclusion of my own, and as the warmth of my smile won hearts, denial won over clarity for decades to come.  As to PTSD?  That remained undiagnosed until a dozen years ago, when denial crashed into despair—and I turned into a stranger to myself.

Flash of insight!  Holy cow!  In order to ensure my inclusion, I'd met the needs of others by excluding myself from my circle of friends!  Can you see how dizzied a mind, blinded by denial, proves to be, most especially at those times when a person's thought processing sense of clarity proves most in need of mindful re-adjustment?  Wow!  This insight is huge!  I mean if trauma breathed life into denial, which created a state of disorder within the development of my three year old thought processor, then how many people with undiagnosed PTSD might be relieved of subconscious fear by engaging in sessions of EMDR, each of which gently prepares the traumatized portions of the brain to heal by working through denial until clarity is restored.

At the age of fourteen, intuition sensed that though 'included' within the inner sanctum of this social club, I'd remained an 'outsider', who had not fit the mold of any of these girls—except for Debi, whose warm smile, awash with sincerity, drew my heartfelt sense of safety close, and though intuition surmised that my inclusion in this club did not feel natural, I chose inclusion over exclusion until fate stepped in, catalyzing a welcome change, which allowed me to stop walking eggshells, and as this change for the better offered me reason to relax my guard, your quiet friend Annie, began to evolve into the person, whose patience chooses to muster the courage necessary to untie each knot of confusion, which had held Chatty Cathy's strength of mental clarity captive for as long as fear of rejection remained unidentified.

Many years would pass before my true sense of personal choice, concerning my conscious inclusion of friends, overcame fear of loneliness, buried inside.  Many years would pass before my five year old voice of positively focused leadership began to seek a path of self discovery, where, each intuitive step forward led me toward healing my brain from PTSD, which had gone undiagnosed until recent years.  Many years would pass before my conscious awareness began to recover the self assertive sense of clarity that had wandered into a smoky maze at the vulnerable age of three.  And once this growing awareness of clarity was mine, my self confident spirit re-awakened, opening my eyes to an insight that changed my life in this enlightened way:  I came to fully embrace this fact:  Finding myself amongst those chosen was a far cry from developing character traits that empowered me to choose friends by myself for myself, regardless of what anyone else might think.

As developing the strength to embrace that conscious awareness is many years down the road, let's high tail it back to the welcome change that was fated to encourage me to drop my guard with the girls, who comprised my high school club, during the spring of my freshman year …

1210 I HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO TITLE THIS POST …

2014
Sooo—clearly, I can't relieve frustration by gazing at photos of Ravi, all day, right?
Yesterday's bright idea to recenter my mind proved to be
A successful, short term plan
Upon feeling centered, I got busy brainstorming until
Three choices emerged from my mind:
Write the story of Will's childhood from scratch
Write around Will's childhood until my computer whiz solves my problem
Don't write, at all

Upon considering each choice, separately, here's what I surmised:
I don't feel like writing a story from scratch that's already been written
I definitely don't want to stop writing until late, next week
That leaves me with writing around Will's childhood, which
Means brainstorming, again, until clarity lands on a story that begins to write itself

Though I sat before my computer, staring at
This partially penned post for quite a while
Nothing inspired a story to emerge from memory, so
In hopes of sidestepping self imposed pressure, which
Stops me from achieving my goal
I'll entice my conscious mind to write a story by
Asking myself a string of leading questions, and
As right after those words appeared on my screen
These three questions popped out of my mind:
Why can't I write about high school?
Why did that question replace self imposed pressure with anxiety?
Didn't anything change in high school that surprised my sense of self, pleasantly?

Thank goodness my answer to question number three is—Yes!
I was more than pleasantly surprised to have been asked to join
A girls' club, peopled by freshmen, who were popular …
Hmmm—now that I think about it—each time I walked into
A new school, that which had felt normal to my self image
Changed in perplexing ways that confounded me to no end—

At my first school, reflective memory sees me as:
Happy
Healthy
High spirited
Bright
Eager to learn
Out-going
Chatty
Fun
A leader of my peers
My little sister's protector
Simply put:  I was a socially self-confident child

No opinions come to mind concerning my physical sense of self, at all

Upon arriving at my second school, memory sees me as:
Happy
Healthy
High spirited
Bright
Eager to learn
Out-going
Chatty
Fun
A self confident newcomer, eager to make new friends—and
My little sister's protector
No opinions come to mind concerning my physical sense of self—until
I'd felt stunned upon being bullied on those
Hellish bus rides to and from Hebrew school—
At which time my self image felt utterly shocked to find myself deemed
Physically repugnant by that busload of boys so as to have caused
My conscious mind to seek refuge in denial as soon as
I'd step foot into that bus where hurtful insults were
Hurled at my physicality, four times each week—and though
My conscious mind was not present on that bus
Those insults pierced so painfully into my subconscious as to
Wound my self esteem as deeply as a soldier, whose psyche
Returns from war, battle scarred with PTSD, which
Can't be seen on the surface but cuts to the quick …
(Whatever that means???)

Need I remind you that as a preteen
Denial and PTSD were not new to me?
That my defense system had called upon denial to
Save my psyche from despair when
My mom depressed after Janet's death …
That just as denial offered my psyche safe haven from
The terror of feeling rejected at the age of three
My conscious awareness dived into denial to escape
Humiliation during those bus rides from hell, and
The same proved true each time
Denial saved my spirit from feeling
Utterly crushed when party invitations were
No longer addressed to me after
I'd been deemed a social pariah, following my first kiss

If you ask why my young mind, though deeply confounded, did not allow
PTSD to disorganize my decision-making process to the point of
Darkening my view of life so much as to
Transform my upbeat, adolescent spirit into a social recluse
My reply would prove as intuitive, today
As had been true of the state of my psyche throughout
Each emotionally discombobulating experience of my childhood:
At my core, I'd believed myself deeply loved by family, and
I'd had no doubt that girls enjoyed my friendship—As to guys—
Well, from the age of three, my dad had been my best friend—so
Intuition suggests that the strength of our friendship
Neutralized my fear of guys unless
Sexual attraction came knocking at my door, and
Now, having painted a simplified landscape, comprising
The complexities that perplexed my sense of identity during
The first fourteen years of my life, you can see why
My sixth sense set out on this back-tracking path in quest of
Self discovery, because self awareness proves necessary to
Healing the wounded portions of my psyche from PTSD

If next you think to ask:
So, what door is today's intuitive saunter down memory lane about to open, next?
I'd reply:
If today's stream of consciousness continues to
Track this same train of thought, tomorrow, then
You'll see fourteen year old Annie feeling shocked to the max when
Upon entering high school, a highly select, popular girl's club
Swoops me into a safety net where I am swept into
A ready-made social life, leaving me breathless with little time for
Beloved novels whose main characters
Had kept me company during junior high when
My girlfriends, who'd comprised the popular crowd, had
Stopped spending leisure time with me in favor of
Partying with preteen guys, who'd followed Joseph's lead
So, upon entering high school—no one was more surprised than me to see
My library books gathering dust next to
My princess phone on my nightstand, because
It's hard to concentrate on people in novels, who prove paper thin, when
Real, live girls and boys begin to ring my chimes—and suddenly—
The social pariah—who'd spent more time in denial than my
Conscious awareness could know—feels as though
Those lonely years, between eleven and fourteen, had never been (???)
Actually, hindsight suggests that once 'the excluded' found herself
Sought after and included, my spirit felt as delighted as
My conscious mind felt bewildered, and
Thus does it make sense to note that
My psyche could not help but harbor
Subconscious fears of the clock running out only to find that
My fairytale coach has turned into a pumpkin, again …

And now, having written this post, intuitively
I've gained a conscious sense of insight into why I'd spent
The first twenty years of my marriage being
The perfect wife, mother and lover (daughter
Sister, teacher and friend to all) for fear that if I was
Found imperfect in any way
Will would have reason to reject me, and
I'd find myself outcast and alone—Again …

1209 SELF CONTROL CALMS FRUSTRATION

2014
Each time a plan meets with success
My mind feels peaceful and my spirit smiles
Each time a plan falls flat on its face
My mind stirs up a sense of frustration that
Sits on my spirit, weighing it down

Though often times, when I can't get a plan off the ground
Two heads prove better than one, except for those times when
Crashing head-on offers naught but
Two headaches for the price of one

One way to lighten the weight of frustration that
Flattens my spirit when a plan collects dust on the shelf
Is to take a time out in hopes of
Redirecting my think tank to brainstorm toward

Revising a workable plan on my own

As intuitive thought guides me to remember that
The only mind I can control is my own
It often makes sense to retreat to a peaceful place where
I feel free to brainstorm through confusion until clarity is mine

On the other hand, there are times when confusion persists, suggesting that
My mind is not empowered with the knowledge necessary to
Solve the problem at hand

For example, yesterday, I spent quite some time attempting to
Open the file containing the story of Will's childhood until
Clarity suggested that my memory had not absorbed
The knowledge necessary to resolve my computer's problem, sooo
With that thought in mind, I came up with this plan, instead:
Place a call to my computer whiz, whose memory is filled with
A wealth of knowledge, which may solve my problem for a fee

Though I took action by implementing this workable plan with immediacy
I learned that the expertise, stored within my computer whiz's memory bank
Will not be available to help me till late next week … sooo, guess what happened?
My frustration arose, anew ... until ...
My intelligence made an automatic withdrawal from my memory bank, which
Deposited this deeper truth into my think tank:

The only person who can lower my frustration is me, sooo ...
Rather than attempting to grasp control over
The busy work schedule of my computer whiz
I chose to call upon self control in hopes of
Minimizing frustration by re-centering my thoughts upon

Baby worshipping—I mean
Seriously—how long can my brain swirl with frustration when
An image as magical as holding Ravi in my arms
Dances through my mind ... lightening my spirit, which spontaneously
Ignites my smile's sense of joy ☺️

1208 AN UNEXPECTED SWIRL OF FRUSTRATION

2014

I feel frustrated
I wrote the story of Will's childhood in 1998
I tried to open that file, today—no such luck
I bought a new computer, last year
I can't get my computer to communicate with that file

I feel frustrated
I need a plan to relieve my frustration
I'll call my computer person
I'll hope that she has insight into solving this problem
I have no need to search for deeper truth into how I feel, right now
I feel frustrated

Plain and simple

1207 WILL GROWS UP Part 1

2014
Our first thought's not always our best thought, which
Is why taking time out to think deep proves wise, time and again
Take this thought for example:
It's often said that opposites attract …

Though surface appearance suggests it's true that opposites attract
Insight into deeper truth suggests that
The opposite of that belief is also true in that couples tend to
Share traits, which prove less obvious until
Reason exists to penetrate deeper into our minds than that
Which may be seen on the surface of conscious awareness

In order to disassemble the limited belief
That we connect with opposites
It's necessary to gain insight into
The sum of our character traits, which
Comprise both sides of human nature; however
Here's why that's easier said than done:
It takes courage to dive beneath
The surface of conscious awareness, where
Less desirable traits

Hide in pockets of subconscious denial

As the emergence of character traits
Based in childhood's unprocessed fears and unhealed wounds
Are as likely to shock you as
Will's vulnerabilities and mine had shocked each of us

You may feel as surprised as we were to discover
Similar wounds and fears, which had escaped our detection until
After our marriage had sound reason to come undone ...

As none can envision fearful traits to which denial keeps us blind
Here's my main motivation for writing my story of family life:
Day after day, as you watch me challenge my subconscious to expose
Unidentified wounds and unprocessed insecurities, I offer you
A bird's eye view of the subtle ways that
Thoughts, laced with defensive insecurities undermine
The good health of heartfelt relationships for these reasons:
Commonly, we have no awareness of fighting for dominance
Commonly we have no awareness of freezing in place
Eventually, we have no clue as to why these relationships come undone

Since stories, examining my adoption of
Fearful traits, have already been written
(Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; First Kiss; Bully for Me)
It seems time to clue you in on details concerning
Will's childhood before your mindset closes the door to
Considering the validity of this possibility:

You, too, may be utterly unaware of the ways in which
Experiential situations, left unexamined, may be driving

Your decision-making process, today ...

While offering you insight into the development of
Our strengths and vulnerabilities

I hope to entice you to grow more aware of those times when

Subconscious fear coaches you and yours to fight, freeze or flee vs

Those times when intuition coaches your conscious minds to

Dive ever more courageously into self discovery so as to embrace
A more balanced view of changes that prove necessary if
Mutual respect and inner peace, craved by
People of both genders at all ages, are to be achieved, first with
Those we love and then
On a global scope as the future unfolds

I mean, seriously:
If people are people wherever we go and
If we've not yet figured out how to connect—
Openly, courageously, assertively, respectfully and
Compassionately—during times of conflict or crises with
Those we love then isn't it improbable to believe that

World leaders will have a clue as to how to
Brainstorm through conflict—in hopes of creating
Lasting peace—until the people of most nations have gained insight into
How often denial blinds everyone into deceiving ourselves?

If you agree that the success of future peace talks lies in the hands of
Children, whom we are raising, today, then
I hope you'll choose to stick close as we check out
The ways in which Will's childhood experiences influenced
The development of a young boy, who
Grew to become a teen, whose strengths and vulnerabilities
Proved to be every bit as varied and complex as my own ...

1206 ANNIE MEETS WILL Part 13

1961
Though I knew Will was nice, my conscious mind had no clue of keying into my brain's power of intuition until recent years.  As a teen, I'd had no clue of sensing an energy, emanating from Will, that drew me toward him in a way that had not been true of any guy who had taken me out before.  Whatever this undefined energy proved to be had disarmed my defense mechanisms for reasons, which, at that time, had remained unexplored.

As denial had kept my conscious mind in the dark (concerning my fear of those bullies on the school bus whose hurtling insults had wounded my self esteem, repeatedly), I'd no clue of harboring subconscious insecurity, which remained painfully raw, until recently.  Therefore, upon meeting Will, I'd no clue that a deep seated fear of being bullied had lurked within my subconscious, haunting my sense of well being with taunts, which undermined my sense of safety.  Reflection suggests that during my dating years all I'd surmised was this:  Something felt different when I was with Will.  Today, I can see that what I'd felt with Will was safe.  And feeling safe enough to have fun on a date was a brand new experience for me.

In truth, I'd not thought to identify, confront and explore issues associated with my lost sense of personal safety until intuition coached my conscious mind to set out upon a quest toward self discovery in hopes of resuscitating portions of my self esteem, which had not been lost, after all!  Rather than having lost portions my self esteem, Mother Nature had preprogrammed my defense system to wind layers of protective gauze around oozing wounds ... and in recent years, it's been my good fortune to have enjoyed unexpected experiences, which filled my spirit with reason to soar with such boundless joy as to unwind those layers of defensive gauze, which had covered the wounded state of my vulnerability until readiness to expose its rawness to my conscious mind was mine.

As my conscious mind had never processed the fact that I'd felt unsafe on a date, that which I'd experienced with Will offered a new sensation for me.  A 'first', so to speak.  Since our brains are preprogrammed to record our 'firsts' as memorable, firsts create indelible impressions upon memory.  First kiss.  First love.  First time I felt safe.  First love at first sight.

If you ask what had drawn my intuitive sense of safety to connect with Will when I was a teen, my reply, which may surprise you, is destined to showcase this fact:  Will and I shared similar traits to which we'd both been blind.  Neither Will nor I recognized these traits in ourselves or each other for this reason:  Mother Nature had seen fit to swath these traits, which concerned portions of wounded self esteem, within defensive layers of my protective cocoon and within Will's, as well.  And though neither he nor I had a clue that these subconscious similarities had been shared, reflection suggests that Will's secreted vulnerability felt as safe to expose itself in my presence as mine felt intuitively safe with him, and all was well until six months later when intuition felt reason to whisper another deeper truth into my ear, and something, concerning safety had reason to shift, and with shift comes change ...

As change is the only constant in life and as neither Will nor I had grown any the wiser concerning questing toward deeper truth, which would one day lead us toward uncovering subconscious traits that hide beneath the surface of self awareness, his sense of safety and mine had reason to come undone … and as denial continued to blind us to insecurities, which proved similar, for decades to come, Mother Nature felt need to step out of the dugout and intervene.  And thus did she call upon intuition to coach one or the other to step up to the plate and smack one insight after another so far out of the ballpark as to inspire first one and then the other to embark upon a quest toward self discovery, which, ultimately, proved fruitful in that both began to develop an ever deepening sense of self …