9 April 2021 – I never thought I would be vacationing in Florida by myself. I have always had such anxiety about going places. Meg and Shel can tell you stories about how I would get physically ill before things, even family events. I missed things because I would get a migraine or a stomachache when we were supposed to go somewhere. They would go, but I would stay home. It was a crazy phenomenon caused by the wall I had built around my inner self. The wall that, until recently, I didn’t even know was there.

You would think as a military child, I would be used to new places and new people, but I think part of my anxiety actually stems from that. I have always had a hard time meeting people and making new friends, even when I was young. Fortunately, I was always put in situations that made it easier, like Girl Scouts and Sunday School. As time went on, I made a few friends, and things would be fine. Then, they would move, or I would move or worse, they would decide they didn’t want to be my friend anymore.

I learned quickly that this would be the cycle, so I prepared myself for it. I started building the wall to protect myself from this cycle. I would allow myself to make friends, but I didn’t allow them into my inner self. In my reality, they were really just acquaintances that I hung out with. Despite the wall, once in a while, I would make a friend. I actually named my daughter Meghan after a friend I had in first grade. We moved to Germany in April of my first-grade year. This was the second move that year, so this was my third school for first grade. Meghan and I met my first day, and she made me feel like I was the most special friend. We were only friends for about three months because she moved shortly after I met her, but her kindness stayed with me. I don’t really remember any other friends from elementary school at all.

In middle school, we moved to Myrtle Beach. Our school was on base and was very small. There were about 50 – 60 kids in each class year. This made making friends really hard. These kids already had their group of friends, and there weren’t many outliers. I did meet people that I enjoyed being around, and we had fun. On the first day of eighth grade, my friends wrote me a note to tell me they decided over the summer that they didn’t want to be my friend anymore. It was devastating, and it reminded me why I didn’t let people in. I made some new friends – they were seventh-graders (SF and LS) because most of the kids my age were friends with those girls that didn’t want to be my friend anymore.

When my dad got orders in the middle of my eighth-grade year, I was devastated, and I threw a fit. I did not want to move. My life was good. I had real friends and great teachers, and I was a star student. My parents decided that Dad would move to Virginia, and we would stay in Myrtle Beach until the end of the school year. It was difficult for my parents to make it work, but they did, and I was so thankful. Those last 5 months were great. I had my first kiss in eighth grade (SE), and my first boyfriend (MH) and I fell in love for the first time (CW). That year ended with 8th-grade graduation and dance. I remember that night so well. It was really incredible. Then, I moved. I kept in touch with my friends for a while and even saw them the following May at their own 8th-grade graduation and dance when my mom took me back for it. But after that, we mostly fell out of touch, except MH. He moved to Northern Virginia, and we wrote letters. In my first year at Mary Washington, he even drove down to visit. On the first day of my second year there, I ran into LS, who was a freshman. Remember, this was all before the internet and social media, so you had to write real letters or call on the phone.

Now, high school was better. I was fortunate to immediately become part of two separate groups of friends that I have stayed in touch with to this day. (You all know who you are.) I also made more friends as the years went on. I had several boyfriends (DB, JK, JA, KB) and several almost boyfriends (DC, SD, DT). My friends and I aren’t as close as we were in high school, and we don’t get together, but I still consider them friends. Thanks to Facebook, it is easy to stay in touch. I have seen some of them more often, one of those friends is my dentist (AM), and our families spent time together when the kids were younger. I have seen one at events over the years (KH). When Dave died, some even showed up at his funeral. Facebook has also made some acquaintances from high school into friends (KW, TK, JF).

Despite all the goodness I had in high school, sometimes my friends sucked because friends always do. Friends sometimes treat each other poorly or turn on each other or fight; it’s a part of friendship. Things never really hurt me because I had built the wall. I never let most people into my inner self. I think only about four of those friends actually knew me. It was not because they weren’t good friends because they were outstanding. The wall didn’t allow people in unless they happened to find one of the cracks, usually by accident. The only people who could ever hurt me were the ones who had seen the inner me. I am glad one of those people I let in was Dave, and he loved me anyway, or my story would be very different.

I still live this way, probably more than ever. I carry the anxiety and fear of rejection with me everywhere I go. My friendships are few, people who really know me are less, people who love me anyway even less. I am working every single day to dismantle the wall, but the bricks are heavy, and the mortar is solid because I built it to stand up to everything that could possibly hurt. The problem is that it doesn’t let the love and light in either. Traveling to new places and doing new things, and meeting new people is weakening the mortar. I am looking forward to the day that the wall falls completely.