Circles — Part 1
Circles (an essay)
The first time I realized I was a part of a “mean girl” clique, I was in elementary school. And, I was by no means innocent. I threw away my arch nemesis’s assignment notebook and then lied about it.
Long story short, we ended up in the principal's office to discuss the issue when it was understood that we both liked the same boy.
This was true but it was also not the issue. At least, it wasn’t my issue.
Nevertheless, we were both scolded, warned not to let boys “get in the way” of friendship, and I was suspended for a day for the disposal of the notebook while she got off scott-free after faking instant messages that said I was going to kill her. Actually. I’m still not sure how she did this in the early 2000s but she came to the principal's office with “receipts.”
If only I had known the term “fake news” back then...
No one ever asked me why I actually threw away the notebook and somehow after this disciplinary visit, we were even, even though she stole my wannabe-boyfriend. But before she did that, she stole my best friend. But again, that was not my issue.
I was jealous of something else entirely — her family.
I desperately wanted what she had. I looked at her and I saw everything I was missing. So, when she “claimed '' my crush and bogarted my friends that (to me) were my only sense of stability in relationships at the time, I had had enough…
I found her assignment notebook after Algebra one day and I barely even stopped to weigh my options. When I read the name written in bold Sharpie in the top left corner of the purple spiral bound, postcard sized, notebook; I just chucked it right into those big navy blue trash bins that go straight to the dumpsters. I wasn’t fucking around with those classroom trashcans that could have been sifted through and her planner could have been found...
I wanted her to feel as disconnected and as lost as I felt everyday.
That was the year before my dad died. The year after I sang “Heartbreak Hotel” on his birthday. The year I remember first realizing that I was not safe. That my family was not safe. That one, day they, would get him. I didn’t know who they were yet and I still don’t, really (but I do know why it’s scary and that kinda makes it more scare but writing about it helps).
Back then, I just had this uncanny feeling that made it impossible for me to feel anything but competition, resentment, and fear of abandonment from the people that surrounded me — at home or at school. Eventually, I became addicted to finding some sort of feeling that could fulfill that lack of validation or authentic love that felt like a gaping hole in my chest and only now, at 30, am I realizing that I’ve spent my whole life chasing both of those things from people who have never (and perhaps will never) be able to give it to me.
When the bullet pierced through my father’s chest, I felt it.
I was rehearsing a play (about Dracula, ironically) that we were to perform (after a year of practice) the following day. I just stopped and dropped everything. I felt like the world was tunneling in on me and I dropped to the floor, crawled to my backpack, pulled my creamsicle color-scheme Siemens cell phone and called my mom. When I asked her where she was and what was wrong she was stunned, I could hear it in her voice.
She was lying.
And she could tell I wasn’t buying it but she said it anyway: “I’m at the airport. Your dad isn’t feeling well.”
I heard her but I didn’t believe her.
I knew he was dead. I knew those words were coming. Last time I saw him, he told me that the next time he came home would be the last time he left and I could see the fear in his eyes when he told me that. On some level I knew, even then, that he wasn’t coming back.
When I left the classroom to go cry in the bathroom, my best friend followed me. She did her best to comfort me but after a couple minutes of inconsolable sobbing, she basically told me to buck up.
“My dad had cancer, OK?” She said. “He’s fine now. Your dad will be, too.”
I looked at her in shock.
She didn’t get it.
She still does not get it.
This was not the first attempt on my dad’s life, but it was the last.
I knew that was the raw truth and this was the real fear my family lived in daily, personified and fully realized… Even though everyone around me was trying to shield me from it and/or pretend it wasn’t true, This moment was the ultimate expression of that fear.
After that day, I never looked at my “best friend” the same way. We stayed friends but I could tell she was only maintaining a relationship with me out of pity. Everyone else in our mean girl circle quickly pulled away from me. Whether it was because they naturally wanted to protect themselves from my emotional overwhelm or because their parents told them not to get “too close.” I mean, it was in the fucking Washington Post and they read about my dad’s death before I was told the truth, for real. But that could just be my insecurities and I will never really know why they pulled away, I still remember the feeling of being abandoned by first my family and then my friends.
In the 8th grade — the mean girl streaks went “viral” — as much as something could go viral in 2003… That was the year Mean Girls (the movie) came out. Naturally, the meanest girls at my school made a “Burn Book” shortly after watching the movie. By this point, I was no longer one of them so therefore, I was a target… Just like everyone else who wasn’t a part of their clique. I’ll never know what they wrote about me, just like I’ll never know the real reason for pulling away from me when I needed support most. But I did know, even then, that this hopeless feeling of heartbreak was nowhere near its end; nor was this the beginning.
The year prior, one of my other “best” friends actually stole my boyfriend. Not just a crush this time. He was (and still is) one of the loves of my life. Although I didn’t know we would actually end up spending nearly a decade together back then, I knew I felt a closeness to him that I had never felt with anyone ever before and perhaps that was because of my life circumstances at the time. He was predictable and safe. But, in fairness, he was “hers” first and only after they broke up and she started holding hands with another boy (remember, this is 7th grade) did I even consider ‘liking’ him.
Our first kiss was in a basement birthday party, on a dare — set up by the birthday girl — for us to pass a watermelon Jolly Rancher.
It was the sweetest moment and memory I have from that time in my life. No pun intended.
Shortly after, we were “dating.” Shortly after that, that same best friend convinced me to break up with him so we can spend our 8th grade year, “single together.” I listened. I broke up with him and immediately regretted it. I told her how I felt the next week at school and she told me not to worry, that she would help me get him back.
Next thing I knew, I saw her wearing his T-shift after gym class.
I asked her if it was Dan’s shirt and she didn’t respond.
I asked her what he said when she told him I regretted dumping him.
She didn’t respond.
I asked her why she was wearing his shirt if she knew I still liked him.
She said, “can’t we both like him?”
That was the last day we spoke for over a year.
On graduation day, I didn’t even mention her name in my remarks to our graduating class. I was the Student Body President and while this is normally a popularity contest, in my case it felt like a pity reward. And I’m certain if you ask any of my classmates they will tell you otherwise. They will tell you they genuinely liked me and I seemed like a happy, well-adjusted child who was very “fortunate” (despite my tragic family circumstances).
It did not matter to anyone that I was crying myself to sleep every night, unable to close my eyes because I was so afraid of the dark, and most of the time felt so out of place that I just wanted to fall through the floor and disappear. But I knew that wasn’t possible so I just clung to the only familiarity I knew, which eventually led me to follow my best friend to the boarding school her brother went to — yes, the one who told me to stop crying while I was feeling my dad’s dying breaths in my bones.
That summer between middle school and high school, I met her at a sleep-away camp.
She immediately made me feel so safe. We bonded over similar feelings about abandonment and I could tell she carried a deep sadness in her that was similar to mine. We held and comforted each other through the pains we both were yet to find words for. She did have some language to describe what I could not yet comprehend and that attracted me to her. She exuded a sense of strength and bravery that I did not have but she shouldn’t have had to ever develop either. I wanted that and that’s why I wanted to be around her. She made me feel safe and seen in a way that no one else had…
Without pretense, without judgement, and with complete acceptance for who I was — scars, bruises, big emotions and all.
We spent everyday together that summer and then she came to visit me at my house after camp had ended. Quickly, my mother put our relationship to an end. And when I went to my sister to cry, complain, and beg for compassion/help/any kind of support at all — she said that she was obviously a lesbian and she was in love with me.
That was the day I realized I was bi-sexual and I should never tell my family or that might give them another reason to leave me, not show up for me, or make me feel more dismissed and alone.
And from that day forward, I went on to repress my sexuality for nearly two whole decades.
When I eventually got to boarding school and my mom could no longer control who I talked to and when, I talked to her every night from my dorm room landline. Until, my supposed “best friend” (yes still the same one) came down the hall one day while I was talking to her and heard us exchanging “I love you’s.” She then proceeded to start running up and down the hallways, screaming “Paula’s a lesbian, Paula’s a lesbian, Paula is a LESBIAN.”
The next night, I told her I couldn’t talk to her anymore.
I stayed friends with the girl who could never really give me anything but pity.
I spent another 8 years dancing in and out of social circles that are so closed off from light or air that everything that enters only ends up withering and dying while pulling you in like a sinkhole that (if you stay in long enough) will eventually swallow you whole.
Soon enough, you wont even know who you are, how you got there, or which way is up… or down.
But, if you're lucky (as I was), once you lose yourself enough times — or who you thought you were — you just might find yourself spat out on the other end, facing a choice.
Are you going to do that again?
Or, do you want to find a new group of friends that ideally doesn’t have such exclusive edges or expectations?
Circles have no beginning and end because they are rooted in an emptiness that can suck you in like an unenjoyable rabbit hole where Alice is not having fun; not that she ever really did, they just made it look that way…
kind of like cults.
With Love,
P
Disclaimer: When you’re in a cult, you’ll know because you wont know until you’re out or ready to get out. No, it doesn’t make sense and if you think you’re in a cult, you probably are. Sometimes it’s totally unassuming and sometimes people drink Kool-Aid (and die). Don’t die. Don’t hide. Get out.
that was Part 1. More, soon.
Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-YOUR LIFE MATTERS (800-273-8255)
Cult awareness hotline: 1-800-CHECK THIS OUT (it’s not actually a hotline)
Bad friend hotline: 1-800-BREAK UP WITH THEM (neither is this)
