puntiglio.com

The second installment of “Guest Blogger Week” comes from one of my newer friends from Las Vegas.  I did my first guest blog gig on her site and love reading what she has to say.  Here is her blog’s link http://fearandparenting.wordpress.com. Be sure to check her out!

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“Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get me.”

The last few months, I’ve been walking around with a pit in my stomach.

I just can’t seem to shake it.

It’s a sense that someone’s about to pull the rug out from under me.

There’s a knock on my door and a Trojan horse is on the other side.

I hear whispers in the cafeteria and I’m looking for the toilet paper on my shoe, hoping that’s the worst that can happen.

I don’t like it. It makes me into a person I don’t like to be. Paranoid. Jumpy. Worried. Anxious.

Not fun, that’s for sure.

It reminds me of my senior year in high school. I had been adopted by a small cluster of girls when I transfered midway through my junior year. We weren’t popular, but we were smart and had our talents. We went through some tough, but all-too-typical teenage times. Boyfriends. Parents. Fitting in. Standing out. Standing up on our own. We were good friends. Friends that I thought would last.

Until the last week of school. We had been spending more and more time away from each other. I was busy with my end-of-year music concerts. They were absorbed by their yearbook and newspaper deadlines. College entrance applications loomed.

I went out to my ‘68 VW bug after school one day and discovered that it had been vandalized. Scrawled across my windows in shoe polish were profanities and vulgarities that I won’t repeat here. Under the windshield was a note - from my friends - screaming their hate for me. Not for what I had done or not done. But for me.

I was shocked and mortified. I drove my car home and cleaned it as quickly as I could before my parents could see it. I didn’t want to try to explain what had happened, because I didn’t understand it myself.

I still don’t. I never will.

At one point, I realized I could keep holding onto this confusion, trying to make some sense of it. Or, I could  let it go. Forgive my old friends (who never apologized or explained) and move on.

Eventually, I did come across one of them. We were getting married about the same time and I saw her name on a wedding registry site. I contacted her through a quick e-mail. I asked how she was doing and wished her well on her impending nuptials. She thanked me and we exchanged a few pleasantries, ignoring the elephant in the room. It was okay. I could live with that elephant.

I don’t know if I like the elephant that I’m staring at now. I don’t even know if it’s real.

I think something I may have written on my blog this year may have hurt people who I know and love. I worry that they may have taken my comments as being directed toward them specifically, when the reality is, my angst was aimed at a nameless, faceless mob.  I wish that their love and respect for me would have led them to confront me directly rather than to harbor hurt and to create distance.

But then again, there my not be an offense. There may not be an issue. Or, there is an issue and it may not be what I think it is.

I just wish I could shake it or deal with it. I can’t stand unresolved crap like this. I hate uninvitied elephants in my room.