Inconvenient Me

I am not sure I have met one person that doesn't doubt their own self worth. Even those very confident people must worry about how they are viewed. Surely they must...

Yet again, this was passed over. I wish they would tell me why they don't want to publish these things, especially when I see things like this posted on Facebook...

So I present: Inconvenient Me

There is one thing I understand about people, and that is, as a whole, they love convenience. It is part of the reason social media is so huge, it gives everyone the most convenient and easy way to “stay in touch”. All anyone has to do is slap a “Like” or “Love” on something, and they now feel a part of your life. It’s actually very voyeuristic, the way social media has made us all. We have all become strangers to each other, just watching what happens from the outside.

While I may have a pretty package most days, I have rough edges. My husband does weird things like Deployments and TDY’s… we live a nomadic, lonely kind of life, and it’s hard for people not in the military life to understand me. Honestly, I am pretty sure it is hard for people IN the military life to understand me! We have three children, and two dogs, and our house is frequently very loud and chaotic. I have no chill, handle things with little to no grace, and I swear like a sailor. Who would want to even be my friend?

I am very inconvenient.

Our boys are only thirteen months apart in age… to say the youngest was a mistake is not accurate, but he sure did arrive a bit quicker than we planned. Our daughter is some kind of old soul gifted to us by the angels, and I often find myself astounded by her. I can see why the children have as many friends as they do, and it makes my heart glad. They are the kind of people that other people will think about when they are not around. My husband is also someone people think of when he is not around, but I am not so sure people think about me when I am not around. I don’t think anyone actively thinks to themselves “I wonder what Caitlin is up to?”

This used to bother me more when I was in middle and high school than it does now. I desperately wanted to be in the popular crowd, be invited to all the parties, and do all the cool things. I wasn’t popular and I didn’t get invited to do the cool things. In middle school, I was frumpy and awkward – I had bad acne and my parents were going through a divorce. The first two years of high school I was still awkward with acne, but now my father had graduated to full blown alcoholic. Who wants to hang out with the girl whose dad is a drunk? No one. That’s who.

After my Ma rescued my sister and me from my father, the last two years of high school didn’t really go the way I had envisioned either. I discovered things like marijuana and alcohol, and let’s just say I made some bad choices. What’s more is I continued to make bad choices all the way until I was 21! My learning curve was kind of on a bad bell curve, or something... Now that I am older, I know many of those choices and actions I did were in a deeply desperate attempt to get people to like me. At best, I think I was tolerated by people. At worse, I think people hated me. I don’t blame any of those people from when I was younger for those thoughts – I didn’t really like myself.

Despite all the growth I have done in my heart and soul, I still have that nagging feeling that people just don’t care. That it is actually too hard to care. That they are too busy with more worthwhile, and interesting people. Everyone wants to be friends with that gal that can complete an Ironman, or has the means to go to Disney World all the time. Everyone want to be friends with the fashionista momma, or the makeup-mom, or the good-at-telling-jokes mom. But what about all the moms that are just wondering if you think about them? What about moms like me… that used to be the desperate girl in school everyone made fun of? Who wants to be friends with us?

.....

I want to be friends with you. I want to see all the pictures from babyhood to toddlerhood and into school age. I want to drink coffee, or a diet coke, with you and I want to laugh at how dumb we used to be when we were younger. I want to hug you when you realize your parents are aging, and we are losing our grandparents. I want to cry with you when you stumble upon that day you realize you are all done having children. I want to go to the gymnastics meets, the cheerleading competitions, the football games, and the band concerts. I want to glory in all of your mundane things you do every day, because to me they are divine.

To me, you are the friend I will always chose. You know how to do real life, and you will always be worth the text message, the phone call, or the handwritten letter. I will always keep trying to be your friend, because I know that like me you feel inconvenient. So, come along, we can be inconvenient together. 

Always.