Feeling Good

So this weekend wasn't a total waste.

I feel more like Linus today, then sad Charlie Brown

I needed to go back home and re-energize until spring break arrived. And it worked. I am feeling so much better than I was last week, and my blah-ness has ended.

And I won't be looking like Harry Potter's sister anymore. Oh Yeah. I got new specks. The lady said that because I had a skinny face, my kind of oval shaped glasses weren't really good. I tried to tell my mother I was looking like Harry Potter but she never listens.

This weekend was a shopping fiasco. Of dressing rooms, tight clothes, and a 80's inspired running suit to go.

I hate shopping. I hate trying on clothes. I hate going to the mall.

The mall is quite possibly the worst place in the whole entire world. You either feel too old, or overdressed to be there. Of course it is a haven for teenagers, who walk around as if they own the place. I of course was never a "mallrat". I only went to the mall when it was necessary, like when my pants were two days away from becoming clean rags for my mother.

Kay has been bugging me about going shopping. Apparently a 19 year old(approaching 20) should not be wearing oversized shirts and jeans all the time. Before I went home she sent about a million emails, suggesting clothes to look for on my trip.

Like this one:
"Can you tell that I really want you to try something new??? :-) It's just that you are so cute and I want to see you make the most of yourself. I saw you without your glasses the other night and I noticed how pretty you are and what great skin you have and how much you hide yourself and totally downplay yourself."

I just read it today, and I kind of was like "yeah I guess she has a point" I not only hide myself in this room, but in everyday situations. I was watching the "greatest show in the world" the other night, and it was the episode about how people use things to keep people distant as a defense mechanism. Whether it be sarcasm or my quiet nature, but it's away of not letting people in.

Lets face. I've never felt like I've fit in. While everyone else has seemed to find there niche, I kind of have always felt as if there was no place for me. You kind of get use to that. I've kind of gotten use to it.

So maybe I do keep at a safe distance. A safe distance keeps you out of harms way right? A safe distant leaves you undiscovered. Maybe I'm afraid of what I will find. Maybe I'm frighten that my worries will be confirmed, that I just never will fit in, so why try.

Unfortunately the world doesn't work like that. The harder you try to stay undiscovered the harder they try to uncover you. Whoever they are. And in true line from the greatest show ever form " I don't want to fit in, I just don't want to stand out." Even when all those around you are begging for you to do so.

So I stepped out. A little. In my attempt at becoming a part of the group, of becoming a participant, instead of well A... Dodger, benchwarmer, sarcastic, quiet girl, whose attempts at trying to fade in the back has only pushed me into center stage.

I know shopping doesn't seem like a step forward into pushing myself out there, but I had to fight the tempation of getting oversized band tees. THAT'S HARD.

Shopping was okay though. Of course if you aren't a 6 foot rail thin model than shopping is not fun. At all. Things on the hanger of course look crappy once you try them on, but I got some stuff. And my boycott of Hottopic has left me craving a rock tee, but having not the slightest clue where to get them.

It's kind of shocking to hear someone from another perspective say that I hide from the world. That my defense mechanism is not only being quiet, but standing to the side, and hoping that no one will notice me. Whats even more shocking is how crappy of a job I have been doing of not drawing attention to myself. And that maybe somewhere deep down inside, I don't want to hang on the fringe anymore. That once in a while it's okay to feel like apart of something, than nothing. I have to make the small steps first.

My mom has been remarking on how she can see me as an adult. When we went to the supermarket, or was driving around town, she was seeing that I was getting older, and she wasn't disappointed with the person I have and will become. So I wonder where I get all these doubts from. Why even when I am assured of the important role I play in people's life, I have yet to see it for myself.

I guess I always had this image that everyone would see how much I had changed, and be proud of that. But I'm afraid of it, because it means saying goodbye to all those maybes, and could have, would haves. It means dealing what the path you have taken, and not looking back anymore. it's hard. it's scary.

But I guess it comes with age. I thought of my grandmother on the way back to school, and I realized this would be the first birthday for all of us, that she won't send a card in the mail. My grandmother sent money every year, even when we hadn't talk to her in like weeks. She sent two, one from my dad and one from her, filled with 100 dollars. I just remembered how much I would miss that. How much I forgot it meant to me, until now. The way she wrote my name, and always signed it the "big 16...". And I guess that what change represents for me, like a death of something you will never be able to get back. And you miss the little safeness of it. You missed its stability, it's consistent nature.

And with these small changes of moving from the edge , I realize how safe and pleasant it seemed, even if it didn't fully involve or express my full potential. And I'm sad that I hid for so long. I'm sad that my grandma and the my past never got to see me, I'm sad I waited so long.(I'll probably write about my grandmother tomorrow, she was one hell of a lady.)

I'm glad to be back at school. I think if I would have been home a little longer, my mom would have convinced me to put on a pink dress and heels. Not for me. I did get a really cute handbag though, which is a step up from using my bookbag as a notebook holder, and purse. This week looks pretty easy. No test. Trip on Saturday or Friday to AI meeting, and after holding out for a week, I am going to fork over the 90 bucks to go to the medical conference in April. I just wanted to go though so I had an excuse to wear a dress.

Valentines day is approaching. Art boy should make his move already. Oh it would be totally cheesy, but I no longer have my Harry Potter glasses, and I got my hair trimmed. That should spark something. Maybe not. Who knows.