Remember those girls in junior high or high school that you were always, on some level, competing with?
  The girls that managed to get good grades and still be popular...for me, I had to choose one, but couldn't, so I left junior high with mediocre grades and without really being remembered by anybody I'm sure.

I wanted to be popular, I wanted people to know who I was and I still do, and I still always have this dream of "showing them one day", but I realised today that it might be too late.

I am 28 years old and I have nothing to show for anything I've done.
Not that I'm not happy...I'm doing alright, the one thing I do have is something that a lot of people have to look a lot longer for than I had to, which is a perpetual partner in crime. My husband. So I'm not complaining, it's just weird because I got the one thing that I wasn't looking for. The one thing that I never dreamed of, I got, and I got it good.

As for success, careerwise...that was what I wanted. I had plans, man, big plans, and I was going to be world famous by now, or at least have something steady, at least knowing where I was going. I wanted to come to the reunion and SHOW those Biatches what I'm made of, you know?
If I even go to the reunion (if someone organizes one, it sure as hell ain't gonna be me!), they will be the ones showing me.

I typed their names into Google and they came up, real estate, business, journalism, published. Damn it. I put my own name in and the only thing that came up was the fact that I went to the same school.

I went to college, I spent money on my education, I had dreams, but nothing happened. And it's not bad luck, not bad timing, it's just me, I'm lazy and I want things to come to me. I don't go out and take, like those girls always did, like they knew how to do when we were 14, and they perfected the art after we parted after 9th grade, and now they have it all. I saw one of them on TV last time I was back home.
I feel like I can't go back home now. They're not my friends anymore and I doubt they'd even recognize me if they saw me in the street, but what if???
I'd ask what they were doing now and they'd tell me about the company they work for, the newspaper they've been published in, the growing bank accounts they have and then they'd ask me the same...and my reply would be..."nothing!".
I'm doing nothing. Um...I live in Canada now...no, no, we havent' been able to finish my application for permanent residency yet...so no, I'm not working at all. Oh yes, I did go to college, I took all these really interesting classes but I haven't done anything with it. I'm a housewife, yeah, kinda. Ha-ha.
I can see the look on their faces...kind of blank, trying not to reveal how stupid they think it all sounds, a little bit of triumph in there too like there always was every time they beat me at something.

It's not that I'm not a competetive person like I always say, it's that I let myself be beaten like I don't care because I don't want to look stupid.
Which, of course, makes me end up looking stupider than most.

I don't know exactly when I became a loser. I know people had high hopes for me when I was little, I was a smart kid. I talked correctly right away and I was reading when I was 3. I was outgoing, brave, funny, I loved attention. I acted, I sang, I wrote, and people liked it.
But someone or something along the way started to bring me down...I developed this fear of losing, of making a fool of myself, and it turned into nerdiness, weirdness. I don't talk to anyone now, I don't joke, I definitely do not sing. Too many chances for people to criticize me there. I have just retreated, given up, and I was NEVER GOING TO!!! I don't know what happened to me, I don't understand it.
I don't have the energy or the patience to learn something new either, or to keep going and develop what I know. I've lost the ability to make new friends and so I have become some sort of loner, one that nobody gives a shit about.
I have no idea where my place is in my husbands plans either...he's younger than me and hasn't had the time to become disillusioned yet, he'll probably succeed in what he wants to do, but it's a different world from mine, and I have no place in it. I try. I hang out. I even made a half-assed attempt at offering input but nobody wants it.

The problem is that it's all up to me, and I can't be trusted to take care of anything, ever, because I'm just too lazy and too much of a coward.
I see the problem but I don't have the guts to fix it.
When did I become so scared of rejection, when did I become shy???

I will just have to start with one thing...one thing that I'll see all the way to the end. Once I have one thing under my belt, the next one will be easier.
Start with something that only concerns me, something that doesn't involve other people or their approval.
Like...weight loss.
Which I could sure use.
I've tried many times and I've done it, but I have very low self-control and almost no discipline, the pounds just come back after a while and all my clothes become tight and uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the girls from junior high are running MARATHONS!!!

That's it. I have to do it this time, no more slacking, no more waiting for good things to just happen.
I have one person to help me, one person who is always more than happy to tell me to pull my head out of my ass an give me a proverbial kick in it when I need it, my husband, insensitive bastard extraordinaire, but loves me.
New diet starts today. TODAY, not tomorrow. It'll be my first thing and I'm going to go through with it this time.

I might never be able to "show them", but my decision is to make myself happy. To at least be able to tell myself: I did this, and I did my best.

It starts today.