During my senior year in high school, I wrote a stereotypically high school emo essay I’m glad were for my eyes only in my private journal. Stripping away all the emo emo-ness of it, the piece was a reflection on how I had been teased mercilessly by many of classmates in grade school and middle school, but even after having come much more into my own as a person in high school, a generally well-liked student, if far from one of the cool kids, I still saw myself as the person I had been before, and showed up to school everyday expecting my classmates to begin treating me that way again. “Nice try, Fruitmire. We remember who you really are."
The truth, I conceded in the piece, is that I rationally knew my classmates actually didn’t think much about the person I used to be, or even the person I was at present; they probably were too wrapped up in their own lives, not to mention their own insecurities, to spend much time thinking of me at all.
Nevertheless, I let my imaginings of what they thought of me partly dictate how I felt day to day. I compared it to being in a prison cell that the guards had long ago unlocked and walked away from, but I remained because I had been there so long, I felt I belonged there.
OH, THAT PIECE WAS SO DAMN EMO.
This journal entry crossed my mind for the first time in years the other day. I’ve long ago left concerns about my high school classmates' opinion of me behind, but I still too often dwell on other's opinions of me, something that's not helped at all by social media. (Man, I'm glad social media wasn't a thing when I was a kid.)
A reminder I occasionally need: People aren't often concerning themselves with what I'm doing, and if they are, well, that's more a reflection on them than me.
In case you need this reminder today as well...
Dennis