One of the things that I have noticed about myself in my life is that I tend to settle into roles. In one group of friends, I might be the comedic relief, with the quick one-liners that keep everybody always laughing. In other groups, such as my family, I tend to be more reserved, letting my brother who’s closest to me in age take on the role of the comedic relief. I tend to stay quiet and more serious with my family members.
Then there are groups of people where if there is any possible reason because of something that’s been said, or tone of voice, or body language, or something like that, where I feel like I might not be wanted, I tend to clam up and not really be able to even hold conversations very well. I get very serious, couldn’t come up with a joke to save my life, and become very uncomfortable and just want to get out of the situation.
I had started feeling that way with the girls. I had noticed that pretty much every time I talked to one of them, she would look the other direction and pretty much never look me in the eyes. She never initiated any conversation with me. It was always the other way around. I also noticed she would laugh at what Chase would say and make comments to him about it but wouldn’t laugh at anything I said.
Sort of the last straw for me, so to speak, was when i made a joke, and she was right there and didn’t laugh. Then Chase came over and made the exact same joke, not knowing I had… and she laughed. Could have been that she just didn’t hear me when i made the joke? Of course that’s a possibility, but it felt to me more like…
I could tell that one of the girls enjoyed our company, but I felt completely unwanted by the other, and as a result, I started to clam up and feel very uncomfortable.
It was a feeling I haven’t had, or at least I can’t recall having had for a very very long time, but it was a feeling I used to have on a regular basis when I was actively being social in various groups as a 20-something year old.
Having had my life’s focus for the last 12 or 13 years be on something very specific and not on making new friends or dating, I haven’t been faced with the circumstances that I began dealing with while with the girls. It was one of those times where you don’t even think about a weakness that you used to have because you never experience it. But it’s not because you overcame it: it’s just because the circumstances that brought it to light haven’t happened for so long. But here they were happening again, with the old demons reawakening.
The next several days would bring an up and down roller coaster of emotions and times of relief as well as times of significant discomfort.
It was the day before that I started feeling those feelings, and I mentioned them to Chase, which I forgot to bring up in my post about the 30th. Chase and I had a long conversation that night with me talking about how I was feeling with the whole situation, he being very supportive and offering to go ahead and part ways with the girls. That’s, not what i wanted, though.
That morning, as normal, I woke up early and headed back to the river like I had done the day before. I spent some time stretching and just thinking for a while, until one of the girls wandered down and sat with me. She wrote in her journal for a while while I continued stretching and pondering. After she finished writing in her journal, she and I chatted for a while about life, goals, dreams, etc.
I’m not sure how long we talked, but after a little while, the other girl also came down, the one I was nervous to be around, and actually, i ended up having a really great conversation with her as well!
So… for the moment, all was well-ish.
Sadly, once I clam up and turn into Serious Stephen, it’s really hard for me to get back to light-hearted, joking Stephen.
So, I felt better, but I was not the light-hearted version of me i think i started out more as when we first met the girls?
So… that… wasn’t good. But… It was what it was.
We ate breakfast, played more games, I think, and all took some opportunities to jump out of the tree into the river, i managing to snap off the lower jumping spot trying to use it as a diving board. 😬
Oops.
From there, we decided to see if we could hike to the Maori carvings on Lake Taupo. The girls had wanted to go and see the carvings, but it was pretty expensive to take a tour or rent water equipment, so we decided to see if we could hike over to where it was, because Google maps made it look like there was a small little peninsula you could walk out on and then look back toward the cliffs and see the carvings.
So we went over to the place where we thought we could hike to it, and we followed some trails, then we did a little bushwacking, and we tried to find a way to the carvings, but in the end we realized that we had the wrong place and there wasn’t any way to actually go see the carvings without trespassing on private property.
Basically the whole area had become completely commercialized, so if you wanted to see the carvings, the only way to do it was by boat, so unless you have your own, you’d need to rent one or go with a tour group.
😕
Anyway, we didn’t end up doing the carvings that day. The girls went out to do something that they needed to do, and Chase and I grabbed some food and headed to a picnic table that overlooked the lake. The girls came and met back up with us, and we ate dinner together there at the picnic table.
Chase made plans to rent a motorboat for 4 hours, along with wakeboards and a tube and whatnot. He also reserved for a few slots for the bungee tower.
Needless to say, we had a pretty exciting day planned for the next day. 😎
I don’t remember for sure, but I think that was the night that we watched Emperor’s New Groove with the girls in their camper van, before returning to our little Toyota Wagon and crashing for the night.
Oh! The girls are doing an advent calendar of sorts, and that day’s item was to write three things you like about yourself (who you are as a person), so here are the three things I wrote:
#1. I like that I genuinely want people to be happy and feel happy.
#2. I like that it’s natural for me to help people.
#3. I like that I want to be a good/better person.
Love and hugs. 😊
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 