Notes from the Neighborhood – Popularity

Before we move on to understand why life moves in full-circle, first and foremost, we have to look back at what brings us back to where we came from.
What is it?
Are my reasons to circle back to a familiar place to find some kind of comfort?
Is this something that can help restore an inner peace? Or do we revert back to an old or more comfortable setting so that our surface mind can think about greater tasks at hand?

As for the changes and the tasks at hand, I mean the ones that we have before us, right here and right now.
Life is a funny place to be.
I know the world is beautiful and vast and, in many cases, our world is largely unexplored.
I know it is.
There’s so many things out there that we have never thought about. There are towns out there and activities that we never knew about because we were never there to learn or experience these things.
I have these notes in my head, which I have taken and stored. These are my notes from the neighborhood. These are details of memory which are my irreplaceable and priceless valuables from an upbringing, which followed me up to and beyond my young adulthood. From there, my path is what brings me here today.

Every town has that popular kid or that popular couple. Every town has that one person who stands out more than anyone else. By the way, there’s never a tie with this. There might be people who come in at a close second, but there’s never a tie when it comes to first place in popularity.
Yes, I can say that my version of this comes from an outsider’s perspective, which is not to say that I was altogether unknown or unpopular. This is certainly not a means to put myself down or say that I was an ugly kid.
I wasn’t. 

Then again, I wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list either. I was never the best looking, the most athletic or the most charismatic. 
I was always me.

There are people who walk into a room and, for whatever reason, everyone notices them. Everyone’s eyes go to them as if this were magnetic and undeniable to say the least. I have never been that person, at least not that I know of.
I don’t know why this is.
I’m not sure if this is chemistry. I don’t know when or where it was that we took a vote for who gets to sit at the head table. I wasn’t there to pick who gets a free pass because of who they are or what they look like. 

I’m not sure where or if there was ever a collective bargaining agreement when it comes to the so-called pretty or the popular; however, all I know is that everyone follows rules and that everyone can find themselves at the mercy of the crowd.
I know this because I have seen this up close and personally. 
I have watched the social vultures pick meat from the bone and chew the fat from gossip. I have also witnessed the implosions of those who succumbed to the pressures of the crowd or the draws of popularity.

I can take this back to a lesson that I learned when I was young.
I was on a school trip with an English teacher whom everyone liked. She was nice to me. Then again, I hardly went to her class (or anyone else’s for that matter) for her to be unkind to me. Plus, I later heard that she had a little bit of a drinking problem.
Her skin was always overly tanned and somewhat orange. She was thin to say the least. When this came up years later, I was told by someone “in the know” that well, “Yeah, vodka will do that to you.”

This is not intended to judge or point fingers at one of my English teachers. But more, this is only a thought that exposes a truth to which there’s an outside world and an internal world. Oftentimes, both can be exceptionally cruel and tiresome.
To me or to the other kids in this teacher’s class, everyone loved this teacher. She was kind. She was patient and funny at times.
It would be inaccurate to say that I remember her clearly. Then again, we are also talking about a memory that is more than 35 years-old.
I was in junior high.
The teacher’s name is unimportant. To keep anonymity at heart, we can call this English teacher anyone.
So, for this exercise, we can call the teacher, Mrs. Meadow.

I remember being on a field trip. We were young kids. All of us were screaming on the bus. I think this might have been either seventh or eighth grade.
There were other teachers on the bus as well. But, since the students had to be split up and kept in small, controllable and watchable groups, every kid wanted to be in Mrs. Meadow’s group.  
I did too.

Everyone was screaming for her. And I can remember watching Mrs. Meadow.
She was sifting through the names on an attendance sheet to make sure she knew who was with her and which students to look for.
I remember Mrs. Meadow looked up at the ceiling of the school bus.
She was getting frustrated!
The kids were all going crazy – except for me. No, I was “people-watching.” Namely, I was watching Mrs. Meadow because I could see she was at her wit’s end.

She looked up at the bluish ceiling of the big yellow school bus. I remember the green seats. I remember the windows which were half-slid downwards and some were closed completely. It was a warm day. Or perhaps it was the upcoming call for a springtime that was on its way. This meant the school year was almost over and that summer fever was about to break out –

Mrs. Meadow looked up in all frustration. Every kid was screaming for her and trying to talk to her at the same time.
And all she said was this, “Popularity is hell!”

She didn’t yell at anyone to shut up or to sit down; hence, this might be the reason why all the kids liked her. 
However, I suppose this was the first time I was able to see someone’s facial expression turn to a different sense of intensity.
It was as though she was experiencing real or physical pain.
I could see she was about to go into a crisis. What I was told by that someone, “in the know,” is that she probably needed a drink . . .
And maybe she did.
Maybe I understand that.
Or, maybe that person “in the know” should’ve gone off to go fuck themselves.
(You think?)
Maybe the need to keep up with everything, to keep everyone happy, and to please everyone is a hard task to complete.
Maybe the rules of being liked are different from the rules of people who are disliked.
That could be it too. No?
Or, maybe there are times when it’s hard to show up and be present because there’s a darkness in the mind which no one else can see and nobody else knows about it.

I once reported a story of a time when I was sick. And I don’t mean with a sore throat or anything like that.
I was outside and sleeping on a park bench in a small part of our neighborhood park. This is what we called the tot-lot because this is where the little kids had their see-saws and slides and little kid items that one might find in a little kid’s playground. 

There were a few chess tables and benches which is where I was hiding and where I was laying down.
There was a girl I knew. Better yet, everyone knew her.
She was one of the popular ones. She was pretty. She had “that” boyfriend who was big and strong and popular.
She was crying because of an argument she had with him on the other side of the park. 

And me, I was hiding away, sinking into the funneled circle of what seemed like an infinite nod.
So, yes.
I was high to say the least.

I remember having a conversation with this young girl. It was like something out of an after-school special that used to come on television.
We were two teenage kids who sat on two different sides of the cafeteria. She had her friends. I had mine. And never the two would meet. 
But we talked.
She wanted to know about “the stuff” I do which I never disclosed. Certainly, this was something that I couldn’t understand why someone so beautiful, so loved, so popular and so regarded would want to know what happens when heroin hits your system. 

But I get it now.
It’s hard to keep up with life. Sometimes, it’s hard to consider who we are in association with the people around us.
How do we survive in this world?
How do we avoid the social executions or free ourselves from the bondage of caring what other people think?
By the way, I love when people tell me how they don’t care what anyone thinks.
Maybe they don’t on a surface level. But beneath the surface is a response from an old occasion which taught them to say, “I’ll never let anyone do that to me again!”

I used to worry a lot about being alone.
I had no protector. Certainly not me.
I never knew that I could do this job and make it through life, alive and in good health.
What happens if people fall out of love with us?
What do we do when people discover us and say, “You know what? They’re really not that cool?”
What happens if we find ourselves cast out from the coolness of a social circle?
Or worse, what happens when we find ourselves alone?
Unloved or unlovable and unwanted or unwantable . . .
What happens when even though we might not have believed in the opinions of the crowd, but at least we had the crowd or at least there was someone with us to placate the posture of better existence – and what happens when the crowds or the friends or that one person who placated our existence is gone or they evaporate? 

Getting back to Mrs. Meadow –

She once told me that I was smarter than I thought. She told me the problem with getting a good grade means that I can do the work; that I’m smart, and that I’m capable. The hardest part about getting that grade is worrying about the next test because what happens when we find ourselves back with the reoccurrence of shame when or if we don’t ace that one test well?

Man, I tell ya . . .
The mind is a complex place to be.
In fairness, most people aren’t really paying attention to us.
At least, not as much as we think. Even if they are, so what?

I used to live under a constant heaviness. I lived beneath the pressure of social anxiety and the fear of public humiliation and an ongoing and brutal character assassination.
I know what it was like to be “that kid” in school who was picked on or bullied.
I know what it’s like to be chewed up in the gossip mills.
I do know what it was like to be hazed and, as it goes with any other contagious or social illness; I also know what it was like to pass the so-called torch and pick on the underlings beneath me.

As a person who always tried to be “in,” so-to-speak, I always tried to find my way into the circle of things.
However, and I say this often because I say this truthfully, as someone who always looked to include himself, I never had the chance to experience the compliment and the honor of being invited.

I was too scared of rejection. And I still am.
I used to believe that if I never called, no one would call me; or that if I disappeared, sure, I’d come up in a memory or two (or maybe more) but eventually, I would fade into obscurity like a fallen leaf that escaped a tree in the earliest moments of autumn. 

No one knows what others see . . .
I know that I don’t see it.

I only know what I knew which was inaccurate and somewhat torturous or anxious at best. 
My head and my thinking wasn’t always my friend. While I am not specifically a fan of social media anymore, I can say that as a result of seeing or running into old acquaintances from my past, it was amazing to hear what their memories are.
And yes, theirs are much different from mine.
Like good old Desio.
I saw him the other week. 

We were talking about the way we were as kids. I told him how I was and Desio made a face.
He gave a smirk and lifted an eyebrow, as if to say “You’re crazy!”
His version of who I was is different from my version of who I was; hence, who I am now, well – I can say that my past has had an impact on my present. If my present is an indication or has an impact on my future (which we know it does), I have to untangle these misunderstandings in my head.
Otherwise, it’ll be hard to live a truly happy life.
I have to realize that yes, I am not “that kid” anymore. 

But to tell you the truth –
I never thought I was much of anything,
at least not until you came around.
No one has ever believed in me or told me about my abilities like you have –
This has become somewhat of a saving grace.

No one else has ever become such a beacon or such a light of hope.
I used to believe in the darkness around me.
I suppose what I love most about you is your bravery to be yourself no matter who’s there or who’s watching.
I can say this for sure.
I used to believe in outside opinions. I used to worry about my place in the circle and losing my seat at the party. 
But then came you . ..
And now –
I realize that this is why I don’t go to so many parties anymore.
I’ve learned to have fun elsewhere.
As for my circle, I prefer to keep this small and to ensure a better level of honesty and intimacy. I don’t want anything or anyone to interrupt this this thing that I have now. 

It’s funny though . . .
Karma likes to laugh.
I once saw a couple who I knew back when my generation reached the age of club-going spots around the neighborhood.
There was a bouncer. He was good looking. There was a bartender. She was beautiful.
She loved him. He abused her.
But the two made a go of it.
I saw them decades later. He looked terrible and mainly unrecognizable. The aftermath of his steroid abuse was unkind to say the least. And she?
Well, she looked tired. She had two kids with her and they were running all around.
And him?
He looked miserable . . .

Neither of them would so much as look at me, let alone say “hello.”
I used to look up at them too.
(not anymore)

Maybe Mrs. Meadow was right.
Popularity is hell. So is keeping up with the Joneses and so are the bullshit particulars when it comes to status and where we are in the social food chain or where we sit in the so-called cafeteria in life.

I am humble now. Then again, I have to be.
I am back to my roots and back to square one, but rebuilding quite well.
I am on an uncharted route and whether I go far or revert back even further, I know that I have to stop this mad pace in my head.
We all do.
I have to remove myself from the internal cruelties and fear.
I have to let go of this.
I can’t please everyone (and neither can you by the way).
To some degree; I can’t please anyone . . .
All I can do is learn to be true to me and my thoughts and be comfortable with who I am, as I am. 

I used to believe with a full heart that I was never enough or that I was too flawed or that sooner or later, I would find myself on the outside looking in, rejected or cast out, and ostracized from the world around me – alone and hated. 

I used to fear that people who learn the truth about me; or when they find out that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m sacred, or that I have these unseeable scars and defects to which of course, I notice them so, naturally, I assume this is all that anyone sees when they look at me – and with all of this, I always assumed it was just a matter of time until rejection found me. I’d be back to the shame of self and cast out once more.

I thought this was just me.
I used to think that this was a thought process that happened to those who were less-desirable. 
Not true.
A few years back, I received an email about something I wrote. This was from a girl who was well-known and well-liked and always included, always invited and always welcomed, no matter where she went. 

She told me that throughout her life, no one else had ever been able to say or put into words the way she felt.
And then she read a page from my story.
“But you did.”
“It’s like you were inside of my head.”
This amazed me.

It’s a lonely world when we are honest or humble and vulnerable.
So, allow me to take this moment to offer this to you – 

I never saw myself the way you do.
But I’m trying to . . .
I want to.
Better yet, I have to because once fear is removed and insecurity is relieved, then maybe, you and the real me can be free to enjoy our lives without overthinking every goddamned thing.
I want that . . .
You know?

I learned a lot from Mrs. Meadow.
I don’t remember the grammar rules she used to teach so well which is obvious to the editing gods who have to deal with me on an everyday basis.
But I do remember what Mrs. Meadow said about popularity.
I remember the damages and the dangers of trying to fit in or to be cool or to please others before pleasing ourselves.
Maybe I’m not cool.
Or, maybe I am.

Either way – who cares?

Besides, I have grown folks’ business to tend to.
Oh, and by the way, I took my first shower in my new apartment. I ate my first meal and had my first snack.
I set up my first computer desk and put together my desk chair.
I wanted to show you right away. Just so you know where I’m at in relation to “here.”
I’m waiting on my lava lamp. Oh, and yeah, I’m waiting for my old friend Tuffy to come home where he belongs . . .

But Tuffy’s a story for another chapter.