Tuesday, September 18, 2012

An Annoying Feeling

Important to note the following: I love everyone in my family. They are all fantastic, well-rounded people who are really involved in the world around them. I love being a part of my family.

I've been spending a lot of time with my family these past few weeks. First I was in Germany with my parents, and I've spent this past weekend with my brother and sister. Now my mom is here to help move me into my dorm in a few days, and we spent a bunch of time at my aunt's house last night. Pretty much since then, I've had this familiar feeling of inferiority hanging over my head.
I don't know what it is about being with my family that makes me feel like that, but I almost always feel like everyone in my family is better than me. I almost never feel like I can hold my own when I'm in a room with three or more of them. They all always have something that they can talk about. They almost always have something more interesting to say than I do. They can keep nearly any conversation going, and going. They can always make people laugh, and have a great time.
For the most part, I am bad at all of those things. I am good at writing. I am pretty good at talking to people one-on-one. But if you add more people and concrete concepts to the equation, I can no longer figure out the answer. I completely flounder; I drown. And I see all of my family on their yachts above me, going on with their amazing lives with their amazing skills.
Somehow, I manage to survive being submerged in confusion and shame. But then I lay on the shore, coughing and spluttering, and knowing that I won't be able to stand back on my own two feet for a while. So I kneel in the background, embarrassed at being the member of the family that doesn't know how to manage a conversation or keep someone engaged. I'm sad to be the one bringing my family down with my incompetence, my inferiority.

1 comment:

  1. You're 18. You don't know how awkward I was at 18, because you were 11. It's a phase I suspect you'll go through, just like I did, because I think we're similar. College helped me a lot to figure out how to be the person I wanted to be, and I'm still learning at 27.

    Hang in there, kid. You'll make it.

    -TB

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