Inside Insight

I've been thinking about myself lately. I have written before about how I do not like myself very much yet don't know what to change or how to go about it.

One of the things I dislike about myself is my lack of trust in other people. Not my parents, not my husband, but my friends. (not you Rachel!) But the friends that I don't talk to everyday. The friends that seem hot and cold to me, depending on the day.

I realize that Dr Phil would tell me that I'm insecure, and it's true. I am. One of the reasons I'm insecure is that I doubt the honesty of others. I doubt their sincerity when they tell me nice things about myself. When they make tentative plans with me or my daughter. When they talk about doing things with me mostly.

I have a good friend, whom I have also written about before. She is one of those beautiful, talented, intelligent, bubbly kind of people whom I admire and want to kill at the same time. She's very pleasant to be around, but I envy her style, her confidence, her ability to remember everyone's name (especially when I confuse my son's and the puppy's names,) and her fit-in-anywhere-with-anyone friendliness with the Clique of the wealthy and cool of our town and school.

I feel like I'm back in high school when my first "real" boyfriend dumped me and my "friends" rolled their eyes out their skulls at me over my intense broken heart. And told me they were tired of hearing about me and him. and would I shut up already! and did I know he was dating Shelley now - no wait! he's dating your close friend, Jennifer.

Shelley and I weren't close friends, but we ran in the same group of friends at school. Jennifer and I were thick as thieves. The friend who told me to shut up already was one of my closest friends also.

I realized this morning that I now doubt most everyone's sincerity in their friendships with me. I see their lips say "let's go to lunch" and then my brain translates it to "let's go to lunch, um, never, cause I don't really like you, and all I really want to do is talk about you and your nerdy shoes and how you should wear makeup everyday, cause seriously you need it...."

But I don't know if they really ever say that or think that about me. I don't. I only suspect it.

I sometimes think that when a person doesn't trust others, it's because they're not trustworthy themselves. If I apply this same principle to myself - I think they're hypocritical because I am hypocritical - I don't like it. I also don't agree.

not completely anyway

I do not make insincere invitations. I may make not-well-thought-out-and-unplanned invitations and have to rearrange things to make it happen. I do not complement a person when I secretly think the opposite. In general, I'm sincere and concerned about the feelings of others.

I think somewhere in this post are the reasons why my closest friends are my mom, Rachel (who lives in MN and I'm in AL) and an in-law.

So, now that I'm 26 36, and my daughter is preparing for 1st grade, I realize that I'm not in the "in" crowd of moms at her school and am reliving the whole high school dumped girlfriend who's a burden and bore to her friends and, also, very uncool.

And I'm lonely.

I want to have a group of friends that I can go to dinner with, go shopping with, fit in with - and TRUST. Mostly, the fit in thing. I don't know that I'll ever trust very much.

A playgroup is not the "thing" here that it is in other areas. Most of Stinkerbell's friend's moms work during the week. (Yes, I work too, SAHMs REALLY work.) When we've been invited to join them and their kids on a mutual day off from work for a trip to the park or something, the final plans never seem to get shared with me. "Hey, we're going to X on Wednesday, y'all want to go too? Great, I'll let you know when we're leaving." Wednesday came and went without mention of the invitation or the time to leave or where to meet.

I almost want to say "girls I have this ultimately cool van for the kids to ride in and would love to drive if you'll just include me," as I dangle the headphones to the dual dvd players in the hearests in front of their kids and taunt them with promises of being able to put their feet on the seats and eat ice cream and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and melt crayons in the seats.

Am I the only one who struggles in this way?

Am I disgustingly sad and does this drive away the possibility of friendships?

Am I right and most everyone is catty and back-stabbing and insincere?



I want more for myself. One of the reasons I want it so much, is that I see the possiblity that I'm teaching my habits to Stinkerbell. I want her to be cool and confident and happy and trusting and sincere and confident and unlike me and envied by her friends.

Is that wrong to want her (or myself) to be envied instead of envying others?

I'm afraid that I'm leading her down my path of loneliness and outsiderdom and wanting more out of friendships. I need to lead by example but don't know how.

I need an example of my own.