Being afraid of so many things guaranteed that high school would hold new and undiscovered terrors. To make matters worse, my only grade school friend, cousin, Gwen was going to a different high school. I was alone. Cliques formed quickly. Four of us girls remained. We'd failed to make alliances with any of the other groups so we were left to form our own. One of the four girls was new. This was a very rare occurrence in our small rural town. Newcomers were often treated with suspicion. Her family were new converts to Catholicism. She found herself baptized and Catholic and headed for Catholic High School before she knew what had hit her.
I watched her from afar as she tried to fit in with the other groups. I was confident that her efforts would be futile. I was fascinated by this social dynamic and at the same time felt a twinge of sadness, that she would have to discover for herself what I already knew. There were more closed doors than open ones in the complicated world of freshman girl social interactions. Finally, after several days of unsuccessful attempts at integration, she walked over to the bench where I and the two other leftover girls sat. She asked, "Can I join you?" I said something like, "Sure, I wondered how long it would take you to find out that you belonged with us." We were the best of friends from that day forward. She is still my best friend after all the years. I still keep in touch with one of the other "leftover" girls, Dorothy has also proven to be a life long friend. She was there for my Dad's rosary after his death and to offer her condolences. She had lost her own father not long before. Her kindness will always touch me.
As for newcomer, Donita, I don't think she can fully understand what a breath of fresh air she was and is to this day. She brightened my world. She is full of life and enthusiasm. She is honest when I need honesty and supportive when I need support. As a child, she wasn't mean or petty. She also didn't know what I was like in grade school although I imagine that if we'd gone to grade school together we'd still have been friends. No one in our small freshman group did cliques well. All of us had been hurt by teasing and felt the pain of being socially isolated without completely understanding why. Today, I can understand why and yet, I still desire the experience of a kinder, gentler social experience. This desire for a more ideal world is another huge reason that I was to walk over the threshold of the convent doors a few years later. I wanted a better world. I wanted a better life than the one I was living. I want those things even now but now, I am much less naive. I can appreciate how difficult these things are to achieve. I know from experience how quickly we get in our own way.
Despite this bright spot of companionship in my teen age world, my teen years were very difficult. Outwardly, I appeared older than my years. Inside, I was still a lonely child, looking for love and attention. I had a lot of responsibilities at home. I learned to cook, clean and care for younger siblings when I was still young myself. In time, I learned how much of an advantage this early experience gave me. At the time, it felt like indentured servitude. If I complained, I often heard, "After all we do for you. . . you could at least do this without complaining."
I hated hearing this so much that I often earned money babysitting or with summer jobs harvesting crops in order to buy the things I needed. Planning meals and diapering children was easy. Treating them with love and affection was not. I felt like my own reserves of love and affection were severely drained. I had little to give them. If I could do it over again, I'd have a lot more fun with my siblings. I'd give a lot less orders and ultimatums. I was still a child myself. I was struggling to do the best I could with the resources I had. My inner resources were seriously depleted.
By the time, I was a senior in high school, depression was a big problem for me. It became obvious to some of my teachers. I found a counselor who worked on a sliding fee scale. She was young and inexperienced but still helpful. Someone was listening to me. That alone felt good. I felt invisible to the people who mattered most. The idea of counseling and talking about one's problems made my stoic parents uncomfortable. They felt I was just being over dramatic. I didn't know it then but being "dramatic" is almost a guaranteed part of being a teen.
Even counting for the extra drama, the depression was real. Years later, I was able to piece together a few stories of relatives who had struggled with their own "dark dog" named depression. Talk of this always made family uncomfortable. After all, they had their faith. Despair was a sin. If you had a problem, you took it to God, got some perspective and miserable or not, went about your day. That was that. Misery was a mantle that many of us wore. Part culture, part genetics, it was a mantle that scratched and tore at me. I wanted to be rid of it but I didn't know how. To reject it felt like rejection of the familiar, of my family, of my faith. It's not rational but that is describes how I felt.
I began to look to college as an opportunity to escape, to feel better about myself. I wasn't prepared for how I really felt once I left and established residence in a dorm, like a regular college freshman. My identity, the one derived from being the eldest daughter caring for the younger children, was suddenly stripped from me. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. My world felt like it was coming apart. After one semester away at college, I made a call to my parents and begged to come home. Once I did, the shame of failure almost destroyed me. I'd shown I was afraid of my own shadow. The shadow had won.
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