Reflections

Alone in a Crowd

• By fannieb
• February 8, 2017
• No Comments

When I was in high school I felt bored. Bored with my normal friends. Bored with the classes. Bored with life. In the summer between my junior and senior years, I enrolled in a typewriting class at the local community college. There, I met a colorful classmate, with whom I was immediately drawn, and, she to me. Not only did she sit opposite me on the row of tables set up like a crew boat, she was the opposite of me in many ways. She was white. She wore micro miniskirts. She was outspoken. She was a high school dropout. Opposite from me in so many ways, which is perhaps what attracted us to each other. I’m not sure what about me (and my boring life) attracted her to me, but something did, and we became friends.

Kathy had earned her high school equivalency degree. She’d been married and had had it annulled all before she turned seventeen. She was fast and loose with boys. She drove her own candy apple red ’69 Mustang (not her mom’s ‘79 Mercury Grand Marquis). All these things made her life seem so exciting to me. This excitement was just what I was seeking to spice up my average, middle class, suburban do-good high school student existence.

I see now, years later, that my search for excitement came from my desire to escape boredom and feelings of hopelessness. I felt average. I wanted to be a part of something that was making a difference (or at least that was being noticed). And Kathy’s antics provided just that for me. In spite of the excitement this relationship brought, it brought me low and made me feel small, too, somehow.

Kathy crossed my mind this morning. I wondered what she would think of my having written a book. Last time I spoke to her, two years ago, she was all about her self. I don’t imagine that has changed. She would probably say something like, “That’s nice. I’m broke. My children have disowned me. And I have an incurable disease.”

My role in her life was to give her an audience. Her role in mine was to give me a show, a drama that she acted out for the attention she craved. As a teen and young adult that was fine. I’ve grown now and recognize how far I’ve come. I realize this now.

I have a very good life, now, but I still feel boredom, on occasion. The boredom I experience now emanates from the feeling that I am fully in control and limitless, that I can accomplish great things (and am), but that I’m surrounded by people who are currently like I was as a high schooler, a sea of victims, eeking out meager existences, seeking excitement in other people’s exploits and unaware of what is possible for them. A dull malaise disrupts my contentment, as I notice this, and once again I am haunted by this familiar feeling.

A shadow of emptiness follows me around, as I work to live my dream life, as I see it unfold before my eyes. As often does during this time of year, my mind revisits this thought: “Will I ever find someone, just one person, with whom I can share my life, my dreams, my accomplishments on the deepest of deep levels?” My belief is that there is someone out there to fill this role. My hope is that finding this someone will help to moderate the low periods I feel in between my highs. Perhaps then I’ll feel truly fulfilled in not only achieving my goals, but in the ability to share my accomplishments deeply with my soulmate.

Photo Credit: Sinichi Suglyama