I am so uncomfortable

Do you get uncomfortable when you are around people?  I'm not talking, your family or your best friends.  I'm talking about crowds of people.  Do you get uncomfortable when you go to the grocery store?  Do you get uncomfortable when you go to a wedding, graduation, baby/bridal shower?  How about when you go to the doctor's office and there are people in the waiting area that you may or may not know.....and the people that you know, are people you don't know very well?  Or when you're shopping...like clothes shopping...when there's an awesome sale going on.  Yes, people everywhere.  Do any of these situations slow you down?  Stop you?  Control you?  Even paralyze you? 

Well, to an extent I used to be afraid of about every situation I mentioned above.  And more.  It's true.  My insides would shake at the mere thought of walking in a door and people turning their heads to look at me. I don't know HOW I got this fear.  It just "became," I guess.  Growing up in a town where I literally could name every person in every home, is such an "oddity" to me now, as I look back.  When I go back to my hometown now, I barely know anybody.  Or at least that's how I feel.  I remember when we were growing up, us kids had to either walk or ride our bikes to the store.  Every day.  Or at least that's how it felt.  Sometimes when I should have walked to the store, I still took my bike.  Either the "baggers" would over-extend the bags or I would over-extend how much could be carried on my handlebars.  Several times I would end up dropping groceries in the middle of the street and if someone was around, they would help me pick them up and get them to the corner or if nobody was around, I would walk a handful to the corner, come back and get more, take it to the corner, rinse and repeat.....until I got it all home. 

My point being..... that never bothered me.  Not once.  And it didn't bother me that probably the bankers and the postmen and everybody in the courthouse watched me do this.  But somewhere, somehow, that part of me that didn't care who saw me do anything stoopid or wrong or backward, left me.  It slithered away in the night.  Or someone stole it.  I'm not sure which.  I have thought that maybe a little bit of peer pressure helped that along but that's natural childhood, isn't it?  Today, I am very aware of how people look at me when I respond to things.  I don't know WHY I do it.  I don't know WHEN I started doing it.  All I know is that I do it.  I don't like being the kind of person that worries about what others' think. 

Going to weddings, showers or even funerals were paralyzing for me.  Not so much the weddings as much as the showers or funerals.  At least when you go to a wedding, you walk in (everyone looks at you) and sit down.  Nobody cares about you anymore because someone else has already walked in and they are looking at them now.  But showers almost paralyzed me.  And to this day, I HATE the games.  Yes, I truly hate them.  If you ever invite me to a shower of any kind, please don't ask me to play a game.  I would ten times over love MORE to go and start cleaning up or something.  I can't explain WHY I don't like these games other than we usually have to either stand up and say something (which usually makes me feel stoopid) or we have to go "around the room" and give an answer (which again, makes me feel stoopid....especially if I don't know the answer) to some kind of baby question or marriage question. 

Hello???  I obviously don't know anything about these things???  Why am I here again??  And funerals suck for me...well they used to.  Don't worry, I'm not going to get morbid here.  I hated funerals growing up because if you truly had an emotional bond.....even the teeniest bond...there were going to be emotions come up that you can't always control.  I don't like crying in public.  I think it's weak.  To this very day, I believe it's weak.  And weak isn't what I want to be known for.  But then again, I don't want to be remembered as a "hard" person either.  Does that make any sense?  All I know is I'm glad I have never snorted at a funeral.  I'll leave it at that.

The doctor's office was hard for me because I didn't "know" the people that I had to sit around.  I was always so self-conscious about everything.  "Do I stink?  Does the person next to me stink?  Does my nose work?  What if I stink and can't smell myself?  Can they hear me breathing?  I can hear me breathing.  Maybe I should hold my breath.  Do I know these people?  What if they speak to me?  What would I even say?  I wonder what my hair looks like in the back.  They are probably wishing they would get called in so they don't have to look at my hair anymore."  By the time I get called into the doctor's office, I have worked my blood pressure up to mountainous proportions.  It didn't take long before I learned to tell them to please take my blood pressure a second time, right before I leave.  And it was ALWAYS normal.  Or at least my blood pressure was.

Black Friday is something that I probably don't have to even talk about but I will.  For a bit.  I have made myself believe that I don't like shopping.....any time of the year...because of the "horror stories" I have been told about Black Friday.  I have always had a reason to not participate in that day.  I have always said I would rather pay the higher price and not have the headache that (I hear) entails that day.

Now...the only one I didn't mention above is the one that is the worst for me.  Public speaking.  I shake from the inside out.  Literally.  I could never understand how the kids in school were able to go on stage and act.  I was in a play when I was in the third grade.  I had one line.  And that was enough.  I remember looking out and seeing all those people smiling back at me.  I guess I'm lucky they were smiling, huh? 

And the school concerts.  I hated getting up in front of the school...the public...and singing.  I loved chorus, don't get me wrong.  And I had THE BEST chorus instructor ever, in high school.  I remember once, trying out for a solo piece.  Let's just say I didn't get it.  Rightly so.  And not because I couldn't sing the notes either.  It was because I was expected to sing where EVERYBODY could see and hear me....and all the lights would be on.  No dice lady.  Put me back in the back row and it's all good.  What was I thinking??

So, like I said, I don't know where I got these "fears."  But over the years, I have made myself face them.  When I go to the grocery store now...I walk in with my head held high.  I don't know many people there but I make sure to smile at everyone I make eye contact with and say hello to anyone that I could reach out and touch. 

When I go to a bridal shower.......okay yes, even funerals......I find something fun to think about.  I don't make fun of.  Don't get me wrong here.  At showers, when I have to stand up and introduce myself and say how I know the person, I try to add something funny.  Something personable.  I remember at one bridal shower, I stood up and said my name and that the gal was "just like my own family to me; that she grew up at my house just like my nieces."  And then my voice started flailing.  I was going to cry.  DAMMIT!  My mind was going a hundred miles a minute.  So I just followed up with "And now I'm starting to cry.....I don't know if it's because she's getting married or if I'm relieved someone else can help take care of her now."  And they laughed...and clapped.  And I was off the hook.  Phew!  Lesson learned.  Just joke and things will be fine. 

Funerals are no different.  Thank God we don't have to get up and say how we know the deceased.  We would never get through it.  "The woman raised me right along with my mom and she scolded me and taught me right from wrong.  This woman let me "be" one of her kids."  Who is going to be able to say that at a funeral without crying?  BUT, remember that I don't like to cry in public.  I'm not saying that I don't cry at funerals...I just don't like to.  So I try to look around as much as possible.  I was always told you aren't supposed to look behind you when you are in church.  Well...if a funeral is in a church, does that count?  Because I don't like to look behind me even at a funeral.  I try to figure out who people are.  And usually, I like to have writing materials with me...ya know, in case I need to pass a note (in class). 

Who knows, I may have a funny story to share about that person.  I may need it for after the funeral when asked who I am.  I can just pull a story out of "thin air."  I was recently at the funeral of my second mom, Kathryn.  A friend that was sitting near asked me who someone was that was sitting near us.  Well, it took us a while but we finally figured it out.  So when I confirmed the identity of this person, this friend says to me, "I thought she died?"  I just looked at her and said "Maybe she did but she's here's paying her respects today.  I guess she couldn't wait until Heaven."  Go ahead and laugh.  We did.

And at the doctor's office, I have changed my tune as well.  I walk in...check in... give them some money... take my shoes off and sit and wait.  I'm a diabetic, remember.  They have to check my feet.  Anyway, they always want to weigh me and they don't need to weigh anymore than they already are.  But if a conversation isn't started with me within the first minute I'm in there, I will start one.  Unless I'm in a bad mood.  Then I don't talk to anybody I don't have to.  But that truly is rare that I'm in such a bad mood I won't talk to anyone.  Anyway, I have made myself start talking to people.  And I force myself to make eye contact when we are talking.  That took years to learn.  And I don't know when it became so easy.  But it is.  Thank God.

And about that whole public speaking thing.  I still hate it.  But I want to do it.  I try and try and try to make myself read things or say things...in a public forum...just because I can.  I led a tour at work yesterday and was a little "tense" about doing it but once I got started on it, I felt like I was "in my element."  It was great.  I had a great time and the group had a great time.  They asked a few questions but told me that they felt like I had given them all the facts I possibly could.  I felt good afterward and so did they.  A first for me. 

And here's the reason I talked about being uncomfortable.  I have someone in my life that is so uncomfortable with my friends and with my family, that they literally have to force themselves to go with me when I'm with friends or family.  That makes me sad.  And this person recently said to me with tears in their eyes, "You don't know what it's like to be uncomfortable around people.  You don't know what it's like to feel like you're beneath others."  Alas, I do. 

And in all honesty, I put myself in a situation recently where I attended a party that consisted of two people that I knew.  Just two.  And it was nice.  But I was uncomfortable.  I felt like I didn't make enough money.  I felt like my clothes weren't nice enough.  And even though I was THAT uncomfortable (which is starting to feel like a new feeling for me), I would do it again in a heart beat because I feel like THAT is truly what gives us character.  The feelings...the people...the places...that we force ourselves to overcome.  To be the person that we want to be.

A few weeks ago, I met up with my friends Mick, Val and Bertha.  We met at a restaurant that none of us had ever been to, in a town that none of us had probably ever been to or at least never spent much time in.  We had a blast.  It was so nice to see Mick again and finally meet his beautiful wife.  I felt like "me."  I didn't feel like that awkward teenager that I was the last time I saw him or "hung out" with schoolmates.  Ten  years ago though, I would have never done that.  Fear would have kept me away.  Does that make sense? Did I grow up somewhere along the way?

So, to the person in my life that thinks I'm comfortable everywhere I go.....now you know the real story.  I have feelings.  I have fears.  And I get uncomfortable.  I'm human.  

 And my "n" is sticking.  I have to go!