Succos Insecurities

Are you feeling sorry for me, by any chance? Because in the last two columns, I told you about having a hard time in elementary school, having a hard time in camp, and then having a hard time in high school.

I did have a hard time. And this column is going to be about being miserable on yom tov. And the whole friends saga in which I worried all day if I had friends, if my friends that I wasn’t quite sure I had would invited me over on yom tov afternoons, if somebody would call me to ask me to join them on a chol hamoed outing, if I would have someone to sit with on the chol hamoed trip my school organized.

So that’s what today’s column is about. Are you feeling sorry for me that I had such a tough teenage hood?

You don’t need to be sorry, even though it’s nice of you, because I have something else to tell you. It’s a great thing that I had all these problems. Because now I get to write these columns. If I would have had a boring teenage life, nobody would be paying me to write these articles. Would you want to listen to a story that sounds like this: I was a very good girl. I listened to my parents. I listened to my principals and teachers and I was an excellent student with a billion friends.

Pretty boring story, no? It’s what my daughter’s story would sound like, even though she herself is not particularly boring. She is also smart and talented. She was actually the kind of kid I hated in high school. Those very happy, well liked, smart, and talented girls who were always of Head of Something because they did every thing right.

I will take a little detour here and tell you that when she was in eighth grade, a girl from my elementary class was her teacher. By PTA she said, “Mindy, how did you deserve to get such a wonderful daughter?”

And I told her what I’m telling you, It’s often worth having a terrible teenhood because good things can come out of it. like me really knowing what teens need in order to be normal, act normal, be happy. So that’s what happened with my daughter. She had a mother (me!) who really got teens. But her story is so boring, that nobody is asking her for a column about her teen life. Right? Right.

To be a writer, it’s best to have some miserable stuff to write about.

And believe it or not, I became a teacher for teenagers. And that was great because I knew all about having lousy teachers so I became a great one. I knew all about lousy teenagers so I knew how to control a class—because the number one thing a teacher needs to do in order to be a great teacher is protect the class from getting out of control. Kids hate those type of teachers. Especially girls who can’t control themselves. They need the safety of a teacher who not only teaches in an interesting way (me!) and cares about her students (most teachers!), but can first create a safe place for her to be in control so she can learn and feel her teacher’s caring.

And then believe it or not, I went on to become a psychologist and I love working with teens even when they make my life complicated with all their problems. They are fun and interesting and funny and exciting. They keep me on my toes. They keep me so much on my toes that I can become a ballet dancer. I recognize a little of myself in each and every one of them. And it’s all because of my own yukky teen life.

So you don’t need to feel sorry for me because everything turned out perfectly for me. I have great kids. I connect to my teen clients and readers because I can relate to their hardships and I have grown from my life in ways that have made me a better, more sensitive, and more appreciative kind of person.

But in any case, back to my Succos problems.

I dreaded Shabbos and yom tov. Like seriously dreaded it.

In my days, I think unlike today where everyone has a million kids and married siblings and a zillion nieces and nephews—or cousins and aunts—we grew up in mostly smallish families. So we usually got together with friends most Shabbosim and yom tov afternoons. We also, believe it or not, had a school trip every chol hamoed in which whoever wanted could join the school for an outing that the 12^th grade Heads of Chol Hamoed were in charge of.

Starting from Wednesday, I began to get nervous. Was somebody going to invite me on Shabbos afternoon? Would I be invited by the in-girls or by the in-between girls? Who would I walk to the Shabbos party with? Would somebody call me to invite me to walk with them or would I have to call somebody and then feel stupid if they said they were already walking with somebody else?

My life was very worrisome.

On yom tov, there were about four to six afternoons in a row that I needed to worry about. The most popular kids were invited out every afternoon. So how many afternoons did I need to be invited out in order for me to keep my status in class? Did it count if a nerdy kid invited me if she also invited a popular kid too?

All this was very exhausting to think about.

And then I had to worry about chol hamoed. If there were four days of chol hamoed, it made it much, much worse. Should I call Chany to ask her what she is doing the first day, Suri the second, Rivky the third, and then offer to take my own niece out for the fourth day? Should I go on the school trip? But then who would I sit next to on the bus? Is it nerdy to call someone up a month in advance to make sure I had a partner on the bus? Or was it a smart move?

Like I said, my social life was complicated, and there were a lot of intricate maneuvering that needed to happen in order for me to face Shabbos and yom tov without dissolving into a puddle of tears and misery.

And it was all for nothing. All I needed to do was call up any girl that I like and say, “Hey, do you want go out on chol hamoed? Do you want to sit on the bus with me?” And sometimes, the girl may have said, “Yes!” and sometimes, she may have said, “Oh, sorry, I am already sitting with Frayde.”

But either way, that girl would have been really happy I had asked her because now she knew I liked her. And if I would have called someone else, eventually somebody would have said yes. And no, I don’t think there would have been a conversation with everyone asking, “Did Malka call you? And you also told her no?” Because everyone likes to be asked to be a friend. And most people are generally liked by a couple of people. And I probably should have just called someone who I knew didn’t have a best friend she HAD to sit with, and I didn’t HAVE to sit with the most popular kid and then be upset she said no. There were so many girls who would have been happy to sit with me, to go with me, if I could have widened my horizons to include some not-so-popular kids in my circle of interest.

Oh well.

Do you think you can look around your class or block or even among your cousins or camp friends and figure out who you would like to be with for reasons other than the fact that they are popular and everyone else wants to be with them? Can you be brave enough to say, “I really like Rivky and I think I will ask her to join me this chol hamoed. Maybe we can take out our nieces together to the rides on 18^th Avenue.”

And she will probably say yes.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I was plain dumb. Feel sorry for yourself if you are making the same mistake and don’t even try to change…

Originally published in Mishpacha Teen’s Pages