Saturday 20 August 2011

Today I started at a new school. I was terrified and really didn't want to go. Everyone else has been there for six months and are great friends, so I'm the outsider and feeling really self-conscious and new. We play games involving remembering names (which I suck at). They get them all right. I get EVERY name wrong. For the rest of the lesson, I don't understand much of what the teacher says, so I'm also feeling really dumb by this point. At break time, I'm feeling dumb, confused, tired, lonely, self-conscious, and I also notice half of them have yummy-looking takeaway lunches, so I'm jealous, and embarrassed by my boring apple and dorky thermos of home-made coffee. So I slink off to the kitchen, pour myself a cup, then come back, and the only spot to sit is on a sofa, in the middle of the group. I sit down. Did I mention I've lost the cup from my thermos... so I have this really embarrassing plastic yellow cup instead? Anyway, they are all discussing going to buy fancy coffees from the machine. I'm wishing I could buy a latté or a double mocha or whatever fancy coffee is available. I'm sitting there blowing the steam from my cheapo coffee, trying to be invisible and feeling sorry for myself and my crappy coffee from home, hoping nobody laughs at my ridiculous smiley-face plastic cup. And then one of them announces that the coffee machine is broken. They complain. They wail. They're very unhappy at missing out on their caffiene fix.

I sit there with my awesome home-made coffee in the hilarious cup, blowing it and feeling smug and quietly grinning to myself.

PERSPECTIVE!!

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm my kids twelve months ago were at their thrid school in twelve months, each time joining mid school year. They had a competition between themselves who could make the most friends in a week. So when is it that we go from kids being able to walk up to any body and say 'wanna play' and not being able to.
    You also could have offered everyone some of your povo coffee and genuinly wanted to offer some regardless of the outcome.
    I once heard this saying and since hearing it I have lived by this, it's my motto if you could have one. 'What other people think of me is none of my buisiness'
    And you know what it's not, when you think about it the more you try the worse you make it for yourself and the less likable you are.
    I think back to my difficult time at school moving from Melbourne to Sydney after term 1 year 10 and making firends, only to have thoise friends by the end of the year make up a rumour that I was gay, that EVERYBODY took seriously. The next year was difficult and awkward, but funny enough when I was conversing with people one on one they were fine, in a group they would whisper and snigger. Back then I wish I'd heard that saying but I soon realised back then I didn't have the problem they did, and so I was able to move on and put the comments and sniggers behind me.
    Just be yourself and if yourself is an apple and a home made coffee then embrace it and hold your head up high, the last thing you should be worried about is fitting in. Realistically none of us ever truly fit in, we just become comfortable with each other. Be comfortable with you otherwise no one else will be able to either.

    ReplyDelete