Social Ineptitude

 
From a very young age I remember feeling like an outsider, never quite fitting in. Not even in my own family. We used to have this house in Eugene, on Miramonti Drive.  There was this huge boulder in the front yard, under a cherry blossom tree.  And for a period of...i hope it wasn't more than a year....I would sit out on that boulder, alone, and sharpen a stick.  Not just any stick, though.  I had procured from the empty lot next door (where there were goats roaming) a stick that I felt oddly connected to.  I loved the way the bark flaked off and the gleaming, pale, flesh underneath was so smooth.  And so it became my pass time to sit on the boulder in the front yard, with the warmth of the sun beating down on my bony shoulders, sharpening the end of the stick into a perfect point.   I felt safe there, free to get lost in the far reaches of my thoughts and avoid any kind of awkward social interaction.

The only thing that changed as time passed, was that I figured out how to fake it really well.  I learned how to be pleasing and tenacious, funny and smart, anything you wanted.  I would be that for you.  It was a classic case of "The-Insides-Never-Matching-the-Outsides-itus".   My sponsor says "if you wanted me to have eaten oatmeal for breakfast, I would tell you I ate oatmeal, when, in reality, I had a pop tart".  And I think, after a while, I believed the construct myself.  It's so easy to get lost in the play. As the big book states, "Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way...Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life if he only manages well?". (p.66-67 Alcoholics Anonymous). For me, playing the perfect part meant being loved and accepted; a way to get past my innate, albeit perceived, inability to connect deeply with others.

Fast forward to today.  The Jig is Up, as it were.  My house of cards crumbled, and I'm now starting to relearn how to relate to people.  Towards the end of my drinking, I isolated myself so much that I didn't even know how to talk to the pizza guy anymore.  Finding other alcoholics who were just like me was such a relief.  Yet, even still I struggle with feeling like a social leper.  I've been going to this weekly women's meeting on Wednesdays with my sponsor.  I've noted for the past few weeks a group of gals go out to dinner afterwards, and I so desperately wanted to be invited.  At long last, my lovely sponsor said, "Are you SURE you can't come with us to dinner"? Wait, What?!? In all my internal brooding, I had forgotten that she had invited me before and I had said I would have to go home to help Troy with the kids, so she quit inviting me.  So it was with amazement that I sat at that table at Marco's and had Asian Curry Rice Salad, laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face.  I was no longer Little Timmy, standing in the cold, watching the lovely gathering through the frosty window panes.  I have to laugh at myself, feeling so worried about not being invited to dinner.  It felt a lot like sitting on the boulder, sharpening my stick.  Alone.  It's such a relief to know that even when I get real and expose my broken self to the world, that I'm still accepted.  Flaws and all. I just hope that as I continue along the path of sobriety I won't feel so LAME!