The Blind leading the Socially Awkward

I was thinking about high school today. I do this often, as my daughter will be in Junior High next year and I have to decide what Junior High to send her to and think about what high school that means she'll go to after that, and this leads to me thinking about her problems, socially, these days and how this stuff will affect her later in life. I know these things affect people into adulthood, and through their lives. I've heard this from people. Hell, I've seen it in people, sometimes... usually.. in very not-good ways.

I, myself, do not think much about high school. I didn't think much about it at the time it was happening, really. Or Junior High, for that matter. The years of Junior High are a blur for me of pain and discomfort with my own skin. I think about the things I was dealing with when I was my daughter's age. She's getting to the age that I can remember my life with fair clarity. I remember school through those years, and I remember there being friends, and there being people who tried to start petty drama with me and my friends and my brother, as kids that age are wont to do. But none of it defines my life at that time.

Home defines my life at that time. Riding in the car with my family, never talking, looking out the window and feeling outside myself. I hear songs from that time and what I think about is not school or friends, but times when I was alone among them, suicidal thoughts.. many, many eighties songs bring to mind memories of suicidal thoughts. "Relax, don't do it.." Sometimes I imagined that was just to me. Times at home, being punished for being off somehow from the rest of them. It's an awkwardness that has never quite washed off.

The crowds at school were a blur. Some of them were my friends, and I gleaned acceptance from them, and could relax around them. It was an act, though. I wasn't connected to anything, really, at that time. I was on full survival mode, and to be frank, nothing that happened at school could affect me. I was too well armored.

I tell my daughter to not worry about the stuff at school, that it's not important. But I know it is, for her. I'm glad that is the major source of stress in her life, in a way. I'm glad to be the soft place she comes to, to shield her against the ravages of the world. But I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what to say. I'm fumbling my way blind through this, the same way she is. Shit. I don't have the answers! I tell her that when I was her age, I didn't care about how popular I was, and it's true, but I hardly take into account why. Sometimes I want to tell her to be happy she doesn't have bigger problems, but the truth is I am thankful she doesn't have bigger problems.