You know those posts...yeah, you do...the "needy" ones...the ones like "only ten percent of my friends will share this, and I know who YOU are"...or the ones that are oh so cryptically written, prompting you to ask, "What's wrong?", or to wonder, "It wasn't me, was it?"...you know the ones...I call 'em "fishing posts"...you know, where people are fishing for sympathy, or for support, or to be stroked, or simply to be acknowledged ("Hello, is there anybody out there?")...
Well, this isn't one of those...while I admit that it may end up sounding like one, trust me, it really, really isn't...you see, I am not seeking, nor do I desire ANY likes, or comments, etc. ...I'm just doing what I do when I have stuff weighing on my mind...I write...it helps me to clarify my thoughts and my feelings, to release the pressure that I feel building up inside of me...you know, so I won't explode...it's my outlet...and really, it's the only one I have...
A while back, I had dream...no, it was more like a nightmare...in it, I heard an all too familiar wailing...it was the haunting sound of my daughter's "little girl" cries, pleading in a tortured, tormented, guttural voice to some unknown, unseen parties in the dream, "Please, please, I don't want them not to play with me!"...I immediately recognized and understood it to be an expression of her fear that the other children would not want to play with her anymore...it literally made me sit up in bed...I sat there panting for a few minutes until I came to grips with the reality that going back to sleep was hopeless...what I knew was only a surreal scenario from my sleeping subconscious had been palpably seared into my waking consciousness and thoughts, and it has hauntingly resided there every day since...and even though I know it was only a chimera, I just can't shake the pain, the anguish that I heard and that I still hear in her emotional entreaty to her phantasmagorical peers...as a parent, the experience was and continues to be heart-rending...
A shift of gears to help lead me to my point...there's this song that is popular on the radio right now...at first listen, it's just a silly, teeny bopper song called "Cool Kids"...however, upon listening to the lyrics more carefully, it is actually relates a sad, depressing, rather forlorn tale, revealing how many kids feel as they struggle to fit in...it's about those kids (and perhaps even some adults) who grow up feeling like a square peg searching for a way to fit into a world that favors round holes...the chorus goes like this..."I wish that I could be like the cool kids, 'Cause all the cool kids, they seem to fit in, I wish that I could be like the cool kids, Like the cool kids, they seem to get it"...when you put the words into the greater context of the problem of isolation and loneliness that many adolescents experience, it is a rather troubling, melancholy tune...
This song, this sophomoric, little ditty, is reflective of why that dream has had such a powerful impact on me..you see, it is my fervent fear that this nocturnal fantasy, as well as this seemingly vapid, little song about teenage angst, is coming to fruition in my daughter's very real life...throughout her childhood, especially during these last few "school age" years, having and keeping friends has never really seemed to come very easily or naturally for her...it's been really sporadic...it just seems that, at best, she has always been the "second (or third) choice" of her peers or that, at worst, she has largely been excluded from their extracurricular relationships and gatherings altogether...until recently, she always seemed to handle it all in stride, moving forward in an optimistic, positive and resilient fashion, either not really recognizing the intended or unintended exclusions and/or slights from her peers or, as a result of the pliancy and buoyancy of childhood, managing to rationalize or to explain them away, protecting herself in the process...in reality, up until the time that she entered middle school the situation was probably more troubling and difficult for us as parents than it was for her...
But she is older now...growing up...and the blinders (or rose-colored glasses) of childhood?...they are coming off...and now she sees and senses what she didn't in the past...over the last few months, things have begun to spiral...she lost what was, for all intent and purposes, the only "real" best friend that she has ever had, a little girl that moved here the same summer that we did that she met when they both began sixth grade...why the breakup?...because the other child's mother did not think that my daughter was "good enough" to be her child's best friend...as a result, she diligently worked to drive a wedge between the girls and to steer her daughter towards more "desirable" friends, and eventually, she was won her way...in the months since, some of the sparkle that has always been in her beautiful eyes and a scintilla of the sunshine that has always emanated from her sweet presence has dulled, faded, and disappeared...we watch her now as she tries so hard, probably way too hard to fill the void and fit in somewhere else...we see and hear her as she desperately attempts to cling to the remaining few friends who she might do things with outside of school, willing to do almost anything so as not to lose them too...and we sense her loneliness, as she spends far too many weekends at home in her room...it is both a hurtful and frightening thing to see your child so dependent and so vulnerable...and it so, so painful to watch her hurt and to see her self-esteem and her self-confidence beginning to wane...and it is SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING NOT be able to just fix it all for her, to make it all better...
I try my best to help her, to advise her, to "coach her up", saying all of the pat and expected things a parent might say to their child in this situation such as this...you know, "To have a friend, you have to be a friend", "Be a good listener", "Always talk to people about their favorite subject...you know, themselves!"...yada, yada, yada...but then I realize...what the hell do I know about this?...what exactly is my level of social expertise and competence (almost laughable)?...I mean, heck, when I was her age, I didn't get invited to the "cool kid" parties either...and I spent most of my high school weekends either at home alone or riding around in my car by myself...and at fifty-eight years old, the only friends that I can really lay claim to are the cyber ones that I have on a godforsaken social networking platform (this is not to disparage or to diminish the value of my Facebook friends and family...not at all...they are kind and caring people who make time for me (or at least tolerate me) on their timelines and in their lives...and besides, they are really all I have...but let's face it...we don't really hang out, now do we?)...hell, my trying to guide this child on how to win friends and influence people is probably a classic example of the blind leading the visually impaired...so, in my efforts to help her, I feel...well, I just feel helpless...
And perhaps worse than that, I even feel responsible...I feel that somehow, someway I may have caused or contributed to these hardships that she is experiencing, that I somehow managed to pass along to her my own social ineptness, awkwardness, unapproachable-ness, aloofness, and unlikeable-ness ...I fear that, despite her sweet, sweet heart made of gold and sunshine, she will wind up being like me, wind up alone like me...and I am abjectly powerless to help her...
So I pray...God, please, please, please find it within your grace and mercy to help my sweet child, help her to know the joy of having her life enriched by the treasure of true friendship, help her to find her niche, to find that place that feels right and at home to her, that place where she fits easily into the hole...please...please just let something come easily for this sweet soul that has faced so many challenges already at such a tender, young age...
That's what's on my mind...
NOT fishing for anything...
Well, this isn't one of those...while I admit that it may end up sounding like one, trust me, it really, really isn't...you see, I am not seeking, nor do I desire ANY likes, or comments, etc. ...I'm just doing what I do when I have stuff weighing on my mind...I write...it helps me to clarify my thoughts and my feelings, to release the pressure that I feel building up inside of me...you know, so I won't explode...it's my outlet...and really, it's the only one I have...
A while back, I had dream...no, it was more like a nightmare...in it, I heard an all too familiar wailing...it was the haunting sound of my daughter's "little girl" cries, pleading in a tortured, tormented, guttural voice to some unknown, unseen parties in the dream, "Please, please, I don't want them not to play with me!"...I immediately recognized and understood it to be an expression of her fear that the other children would not want to play with her anymore...it literally made me sit up in bed...I sat there panting for a few minutes until I came to grips with the reality that going back to sleep was hopeless...what I knew was only a surreal scenario from my sleeping subconscious had been palpably seared into my waking consciousness and thoughts, and it has hauntingly resided there every day since...and even though I know it was only a chimera, I just can't shake the pain, the anguish that I heard and that I still hear in her emotional entreaty to her phantasmagorical peers...as a parent, the experience was and continues to be heart-rending...
A shift of gears to help lead me to my point...there's this song that is popular on the radio right now...at first listen, it's just a silly, teeny bopper song called "Cool Kids"...however, upon listening to the lyrics more carefully, it is actually relates a sad, depressing, rather forlorn tale, revealing how many kids feel as they struggle to fit in...it's about those kids (and perhaps even some adults) who grow up feeling like a square peg searching for a way to fit into a world that favors round holes...the chorus goes like this..."I wish that I could be like the cool kids, 'Cause all the cool kids, they seem to fit in, I wish that I could be like the cool kids, Like the cool kids, they seem to get it"...when you put the words into the greater context of the problem of isolation and loneliness that many adolescents experience, it is a rather troubling, melancholy tune...
This song, this sophomoric, little ditty, is reflective of why that dream has had such a powerful impact on me..you see, it is my fervent fear that this nocturnal fantasy, as well as this seemingly vapid, little song about teenage angst, is coming to fruition in my daughter's very real life...throughout her childhood, especially during these last few "school age" years, having and keeping friends has never really seemed to come very easily or naturally for her...it's been really sporadic...it just seems that, at best, she has always been the "second (or third) choice" of her peers or that, at worst, she has largely been excluded from their extracurricular relationships and gatherings altogether...until recently, she always seemed to handle it all in stride, moving forward in an optimistic, positive and resilient fashion, either not really recognizing the intended or unintended exclusions and/or slights from her peers or, as a result of the pliancy and buoyancy of childhood, managing to rationalize or to explain them away, protecting herself in the process...in reality, up until the time that she entered middle school the situation was probably more troubling and difficult for us as parents than it was for her...
But she is older now...growing up...and the blinders (or rose-colored glasses) of childhood?...they are coming off...and now she sees and senses what she didn't in the past...over the last few months, things have begun to spiral...she lost what was, for all intent and purposes, the only "real" best friend that she has ever had, a little girl that moved here the same summer that we did that she met when they both began sixth grade...why the breakup?...because the other child's mother did not think that my daughter was "good enough" to be her child's best friend...as a result, she diligently worked to drive a wedge between the girls and to steer her daughter towards more "desirable" friends, and eventually, she was won her way...in the months since, some of the sparkle that has always been in her beautiful eyes and a scintilla of the sunshine that has always emanated from her sweet presence has dulled, faded, and disappeared...we watch her now as she tries so hard, probably way too hard to fill the void and fit in somewhere else...we see and hear her as she desperately attempts to cling to the remaining few friends who she might do things with outside of school, willing to do almost anything so as not to lose them too...and we sense her loneliness, as she spends far too many weekends at home in her room...it is both a hurtful and frightening thing to see your child so dependent and so vulnerable...and it so, so painful to watch her hurt and to see her self-esteem and her self-confidence beginning to wane...and it is SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING NOT be able to just fix it all for her, to make it all better...
I try my best to help her, to advise her, to "coach her up", saying all of the pat and expected things a parent might say to their child in this situation such as this...you know, "To have a friend, you have to be a friend", "Be a good listener", "Always talk to people about their favorite subject...you know, themselves!"...yada, yada, yada...but then I realize...what the hell do I know about this?...what exactly is my level of social expertise and competence (almost laughable)?...I mean, heck, when I was her age, I didn't get invited to the "cool kid" parties either...and I spent most of my high school weekends either at home alone or riding around in my car by myself...and at fifty-eight years old, the only friends that I can really lay claim to are the cyber ones that I have on a godforsaken social networking platform (this is not to disparage or to diminish the value of my Facebook friends and family...not at all...they are kind and caring people who make time for me (or at least tolerate me) on their timelines and in their lives...and besides, they are really all I have...but let's face it...we don't really hang out, now do we?)...hell, my trying to guide this child on how to win friends and influence people is probably a classic example of the blind leading the visually impaired...so, in my efforts to help her, I feel...well, I just feel helpless...
And perhaps worse than that, I even feel responsible...I feel that somehow, someway I may have caused or contributed to these hardships that she is experiencing, that I somehow managed to pass along to her my own social ineptness, awkwardness, unapproachable-ness, aloofness, and unlikeable-ness ...I fear that, despite her sweet, sweet heart made of gold and sunshine, she will wind up being like me, wind up alone like me...and I am abjectly powerless to help her...
So I pray...God, please, please, please find it within your grace and mercy to help my sweet child, help her to know the joy of having her life enriched by the treasure of true friendship, help her to find her niche, to find that place that feels right and at home to her, that place where she fits easily into the hole...please...please just let something come easily for this sweet soul that has faced so many challenges already at such a tender, young age...
That's what's on my mind...
NOT fishing for anything...
