I Keep Going Back

A friend of mine came up from the Detroit area last weekend to watch some football, grill up a couple steaks and just hang out. While here we started talking about the things we used to do when we were kids. This friend is someone that I was pretty close to while young yet life, as it often does, separated us and we’ve just recently reunited in the last few years.

While talking to him I mentioned that I had recently started corresponding with a number of people we knew as kids from school. I started mentioning names and we would discuss whatever memories we had of them. We started discussing all kinds of folks. Some that we were very close to, and others, that were kind of on the fringe of the little circle that we all kind of get lumped into throughout our lives.

During this little game of “remember so and so” I noticed that I would mention things that my friend would only have a slight memory of. I took that to mean that he just couldn’t remember the things we took part in. I mentioned this to him and he said I remembered these things because I was “pretty popular” in school. That’s the last thing I ever thought I’d hear about me in my youth.
I’ve mentioned before about how alone I always felt not only in my youth but throughout my life. To think I was one of the popular kids in school is something that I find really hard to put my arms around. I mean, my social life has never really varied over the years; I spent my time in high school either working or staying home and watching television. I couldn’t possibly count the Friday and Saturday nights I spent home alone in my house in Oak Park. Popular kids don’t do that.

I would sit there watching “Carol Burnett” almost every Saturday. Sometimes a friend would be there but most times it was a solitary party. I didn’t go to many parties back then and the ones I did attend would find me off in a corner, watching people getting drunk or viewing the inevitable fight that would break out. I always tried to place myself right on the edge of any circle that would form. I never allowed myself to get too close to any of the action. I always had this feeling that I’d be found out if I did.

Found out? What was I afraid to show? That’s easy. I was very concerned that if any of these people got to know me very well then they would inevitably find all the faults that I worked so hard to cover up about myself. Whether or not these faults were real has nothing to do with any of this. I perceived them and that’s all one needs to believe in their reality.

My problem is that I never really got rid of the feeling of having to stay on the outskirts. I’m working on putting the two realities together just to help myself understand myself some more. I’m surely not the only person who saw themselves as little more than a fringe player in the shaping of their own lives. Don’t misunderstand what I just said. Nobody put these feelings of inadequacy in my head but me. Why I put them there, I don’t know, could be a million reasons. This revisiting the past is truly a learning experience. I feel like there’s so much work I could do there. So far I like what I’m finding about me way back then. I think I’ll stay awhile.