Faces

I just posted an elementary school class picture on Facebook. Going to tag the people who are my Facebook friends, I notice trends:
29 students in the class
8 are currently my Facebook friends
3 1/3 African-Americans in the entire class, all of whom are my Facebook friends
3 of my 8 tagged friends are gay/bisexual
2 of my Fb friends were the other huge dorks that annoyed the hell out of me growing up. Both of them are gay
The third tagged lesbian I still see occasionally and I like very much; we could be reality friends.

Ken's photo is next to mine. The pictures aren't in alphabetical order; I'm guessing they're in whatever order we chose to stand in line because I'm also next to my fifth grade best friend, Ken's best friend is on his other side, and there are mini clique clusterings across the page. I've known him for 20 years. He remembers things about me I'd forgotten, times when I tried to conquer the world at age 10 and was too wrapped up in fighting evil to be a kid or be happy or notice what anyone else was doing.

Now Ken is working to fill the world with good and caring for everyone around him. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
How?

Conversations with 8-Year-Olds

"They're still talking."
"Yeah, grownups like to talk a lot."
"A lot a lot."
"I guess once you're grown up you stop having games and toys to play with so you talk instead."
"That's terrible!"
"It doesn't have to be. Talking can be fun."
[skeptical look]
"If you know how to use them right, words become your games, your toys. Words can be fun."

*actual conversation I had today

My building had a garage sale today. Only my downstairs neighbor and I brought anything out to sell, but many of the Cast of Characters came through. I sold my old microwave and bought a mirror for my dining room and a bag of bubble wrap.

One neighbor was having her porch professionally landscaped (really). Some cross between interior and exterior decoration with flower pots and chairs and a giant umbrella that looks perfectly nice but seems a bit out of place on a second floor porch with the third floor porch directly above blocking the elements. Then again, maybe the umbrella should be taken completely out of its utilitarian comfort zone and used as a general decor item. People hang pretty fans on their walls, so why not an umbrella over my coffee table? I'm not superstitious, and wouldn't it be lovely during the long Chicago winter if my living room set came straight from a the deck of a Carnival Cruise?

I'm not sure when exactly that last paragraph turned sarcastic, but it did. It would be amusing to turn my living room into a tropical resort, but I like the warm living space theme better than the tacky-with-irony right now.

At any rate, the landscaper brought along her son for the day and the poor kid had absolutely nothing to do. For the first hour he just hung around and played with my plastic toy cash register and found new and bored-looking ways to climb up and down the bottom few stairs. When we hit the afternoon lull in both customers and conversation, I asked the kid if he liked games or arts and crafts or anything I might be able to bring out for him from my condo.
"Arts and crafts!"
Boy had he come to the right place. I brought out my cardmaking stuff and showed him how to make envelopes and he had a grand old time. I'm just glad I don't pay for the paper considering how much he went through.

When I was a kid, I didn't want to be a kid and I wasn't very good at it anyway. Now I finally see the merits and it's time to grow up. I was much more comfortable with adults before I became one. It's harder to see when you're in the midst of something; maybe I like being the "other" so I can maintain perspective.

absolution

Recently, a number of people from my distant past have contacted me via Facebook. While all of these people have been Decent Human Beings, following links of friends-of-friends and whatnot yielded many people I'd rather forget. But with time and distance on my side, it's a bit easier to see why I was so miserable growing up: I went to school with some absolutely dreadful excuses for human beings. Those of you who read this who grew up with me know exactly what I'm talking about: we were surrounded by truly cruel, terrible children/adolescents with disgusting values systems. The Future Greek System Cookie Cutter Whores (male and female alike). The dim, shallow twats who weren't content to just be dim and shallow themselves but found it necessary to belittle and berate anything that didn't fit neatly into the box. God forbid you wore the wrong clothes or "acted smart" or thought independently. Every time I opened my mouth, they sneered and rolled their eyes and told me to shut it. Maybe I would have come out less scathed had I listened, but to me that was surrender, so I fought back tooth and nail. I fought just. so. hard. to be true to myself while they told me I was annoying and stupid and why did I have to be "like that" all the time and shut up, you fucking freak. I was aware of my parents' impotence by the time I was 7. Every time they tried to help (talking to the teachers or other parents or giving me advice on how to handle mean little children) it got worse. No wonder I didn't trust them with anything, taking the burden of my own pain completely on my own shoulders. No wonder I'm so inclined towards loner-ism in my sad, hurt, self-hating way. I learned very young that people were either mean or useless. It was the perfect recipe for a hard, thin outer shell and complete mush on the inside.
Self-help gurus and therapists are always saying to take responsibility for your own life and misery, but maybe my problem is that I've been taking that responsibility for the better part of 25 years when in fact it's an undeserved burden. Nobody deserves to be treated the way I was treated, and while I was fighting and fighting and fighting, I never accepted the fact that I was actually a victim. I hate the victim mentality, but at the same time, if I never recognize that they injured me deeply, I can never tend to my wounds. And I've been out of the thick of the shit for seven years now and I'm clearly not yet healed. I'm convinced people don't like me or shouldn't like me. I have a terrible time trusting people and it takes very little for them to hurt me a whole lot. And then I'm perpetually single because Why would anyone love me when I am so undeserving of love? The shit runs deep and it hurts it hurts it hurts. But no child deserves the mistreatment and burden I carried. It wasn't my fault. These were bad people doing bad things and I didn't deserve them. It wasn't my fault. It isn't my fault. My pain is justified and real and not my fault.