The Legend in My Own Mind

I was an army brat growing up. We moved every 1 to 3 years. I lived
in Alabama, Michigan, Texas, Germany and Maryland and traveled to
all different states and countries in between. For some kids, like my
sister, all this bouncing around was hard. We had to leave friends behind
and start all over in a new place, new house, new school, making new
friends. I'm an extrovert. I just thought of it as new signatures for my
"autograph book" (remember those? Like any of us would fall over some
famous person and we just so happened to have an autograph book in
our back pocket next to that long handled plastic pink and yellow marble
colored comb?)
I was great at making friends. I always had the quantity, even if I
didn't always have the quality of friends my parents preferred for me.
I always felt sorry for my sister. Just one good friend at any particular
place we lived...maybe two or three more that were close acquaintances.
Of course, MY friends were usually popular and loud and everyone knew
them so I must have been fairly popular, too. Right?
Reality check: Facebook is great for reconnecting with old high school
friends/acquaintances. I've reestablished communication with lots of
people I went to high school with in Germany the first three years and
with a bunch more that I knew my senior year in high school in Maryland.
(Damn Army....dragged me off before my last year in Stuttgart!) So, there
was this really good looking guy who I met in my drama class my junior
year in Germany. He was very nice and always talked to me whenever we
saw each other in the hallways. My sister had a massive crush on him and
begged me to introduce her to him. ..which I did....begrudgingly...after
hearing how it's so not fair that I know all the good-looking and cool guys
and jocks, etc. So, I introduced them. And they began to talk in the halls
between classes.
Twenty-five years later I open a Facebook account. While looking up
people from my two high schools, I ran across this guy's name. "Oh, wow,"
I thought to myself. "I always wondered what happened to him." So, I
sent a message and an add friend invite and then NOTHING. I figured
surely he MUST remember me. I hung with all the popular kids in my class
and even though I was a year behind him in school, he MUST know me.
I was so damn cute in high school. You know, despite the braces, freckles,
really curly hair when everyone else was wearing it straight and feathered
back....and blonde....except mine was reddish brown. But I stood out.
Among all the other popular kids while we were selling donuts for the
junior class formal. Yeah, he knew me. He HAD to remember me. Afterall,
I remembered him.
Two weeks went by and still no word. Well, until today. I got a Facebook
message that had my total reality check in just a couple of bland, ego shat-
tering sentences: I'm sorry. I'm old now. Help me remember....how did you
know me?
"How did YOU know ME?" Okay, that verifies that he didn't know me.
"I'm sorry" that's just common courtesy. "I'm old now" that's just crap. He's
41 maybe 42. "Help me remember" means, "all those conversations that we
had during drama class and in the hallways, and even meeting your sister
was all just time I passed nodding and smiling my dazzling, popular guy
smile while in my head I was thinking, "I wonder what's for lunch in the cafeteria
today" and "Who the hell is this dorky chick with the braces who keeps talking
to me all the time? Oh yeah. I think she sells donuts or something. I wonder if
she knows the girl with the big boobs in my calculus class. If she ever shuts up
I'll ask her. Oops there's the bell."
Yup. I apparently was a legend in my own mind. I must not have made an
impression on as many people as I thought I had. My sister will be relieved.
Perhaps I'm one of those "sympathy friend additions" on Facebook. You know,
where you feel a little guilty because you don't actually remember the person
who's friending you and you have to run to your yearbook and look them up and
you think, "Well, I saw her around. It's been 25 years. Maybe I WAS friends with
her and I just don't remember." Man. I think I'm going to go get the whole word
LOSER tattooed on my forehead, instead of just the letter L. At least then, I'll make
an impression on any future friends I make.

A Moment of Booze-Free Clarity

I was just sitting here going over a few issues in my mind when I
came to the brutal realization that I've become....a little insecure.
I know! ME? Insecure? Never. I'd have never thunk it either, but it
is true. And this is a first for me. So I may not be handling insecurity
all that well. I'll explain.

If you ask any of my friends, family, acquaintances, high school
pals, former work mates, "What is Nikki like?" I'd be willing to bet
that NONE of them would say I'm insecure. You'd be more apt to
hear words like loud, wild, uninhibited, funny, crazy, short, a legend
in her own mind, and creative. But insecure was something
I could never be. And then a few events in my life left me in a tail
spin. Marriage, children, becoming a Stay-at-Home-Mom.....nah, I
could handle those. My two oldest kids becoming teenagers, however,
has just about sucked the life out of me....and I still have 3 more
teetering on the brink of Teendom. (God help me!)

I've always been just one step shy of "cool." Not quite a dork with
pocket protector and elbow patches, but still acceptable enough to
sell donuts for the junior class during lunch breaks in high school,
and able to give the old "I'm really flattered that you like me" speech
to guys at work who wanted to date me but DID have pocket protectors
and elbow patches. I've always been able to do anything I've set my
mind to do. I wanted to learn to speak Arabic and I have. I always
wanted to travel the world and I have. I wanted to marry a great guy
and have a big family...boy, did I ever! So, what's with the insecurity?

Well, I want to write. I've been talking about writing a book now for
ten years and I just cannot seem to get the flow going. Yeah, I write
all the time on here....but I can't make a book out of a blog. And
then I meet people on the internet like Shauna Glenn and I think,
"Wow. She's younger than me and she's published and she's got
one fewer kids than I do. Why can't I get my stuff together? I should
have even MORE to write about than she does?" And damn if that
little bit of intimidation starts to expand into full blown discouragement.

I know I can write. I know I can make people laugh. And I don't mean
just my friend, LaRonda. Yeah, she has a great sense of humor but
she and her husband have a pest control business. So who knows
what she's been sniffing all day prior to reading my blogs. She may
laugh at anything now, for all I know! (Just kidding, LaRonda. I know
you keep your chem-sniffing to a minimum.) I guess I just had that
moment of clarity where you realize what's been holding you back
from your dreams. So I guess I'd better get my stuff together and
start writing for real.