When I'm sad or uncomfortable or jealous, I generally use one of two defensive maneuvers: sleep or insults.
When I was 16, my heart was broken into about nine pieces. It took nine months to recover and replace each piece, and two more years to figure out if I'd put them back in the right place.\nBecause the heartbreak was my first achingly final and teenage-tragic heartbreak, I didn't know what to do. So I slept. I crawled into bed and pulled my comforter over my head and tried to sleep through time.
Some people meet new people who can take their heart pieces and put them back together. Some people go to lots of parties and drive too fast and take up with boys in back seats. I convinced myself that I was too tired for all that. I would wake up and eat breakfast and think "Well, today's the day I ..." and I'd run up to my bed and dive in. Today was the day I'd sleep.
The sleeping got me through; I'm sure of it. I slept through my friends laughing and my sister telling me about her boyfriend and their adventures and my mother asking me to please interest myself in something other than pillows and blankets.
Once I get to college, I start to think I don't need defensive maneuvers anymore. It's just take a few classes, skip a few classes, eat salads in the dining hall, flirt with boys, hit the gym, drink at parties, dance at parties, take boys home to the dorm and eat lots of cookies late at night. Then repeat.
Unfortunately, this wasn't my college life. Instead, I hit the library more than the gym. I hit on more boys than I took home. I hit my bed, face first, at the sign of any trouble. If someone doesn't want to text me back - and it's crucial! Where are we going tonight / do you want to hang out tonight / please tell me we didn't have to read the whole book - I sleep. Just a harmless nap where I coo to myself. Three hours later - still no text. I thought for sure I'd dream it into reality.
I can't sleep away my life, though. Unfortunately, I still have to pay bills, go to class and interact with people outside of my dreams. At times, these interactions bring out a flaw of mine - jealousy.\nI get jealous fairly easily. And it's not the common case of "Oh my boyfriend is flirting with that girl, isn't he?" or "Is she flirting ... Oh yeah, it's her ... She must be ugly, fat, stupid or probably all three." It's much worse.
Sometimes it boils down to inane things like wardrobes. There are plenty of girls who simply have nicer clothes than I do. They're the ones who have cute winter coats. My winter coats are never cute. They're heinous and big or two sizes too small or exceedingly puffy. If I'm in a good mood, I simply wish for the nice boots, the delicate dresses, the flattering jeans. Because I often find myself in a not-good mood I have to insult:
"Her shoes are nice, but she could stand to lose 10 pounds. Or 15."
"Her hair is so long, and it could be in a commercial ... but her voice! No one could listen to that for more than five minutes."
I get jealous of males, too. Mainly because they seem to have a lot more fun. I wouldn't mind driving around blasting rap music in my topless Jeep Wrangler. I really wouldn't hate it. It wouldn't kill me to shrug my shoulders and belch after shot-gunning a beer or three.
Therefore, they must be stupid. Not like "Oh guys are dumb, aren't they?" followed by giggles. No, their IQs are lower and they definitely scored lower on that last test. If they're having more fun than I am, they always scored lower on that last test.
But when you're sitting in your room at home - the one you had before you left for school - and you're scared, and you've never decided how to deal with fear or jealousy, then no defense mechanism will help you. You're scared because you're old enough to live on your own but young enough to have your parents fund your living. You're scared because you're too old to depend on others for love and affection and everything you think you deserve, and you're too young not to have love and affection and everything you think you deserve. You're in between.
I wasn't tired sitting there, so I couldn't sleep. And I wasn't jealous, so I couldn't put others down. I just sat there, and I let myself be scared.
Connelly's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at c.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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