Insecurity, etc. - 10/4/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

I have been relatively miserable lately.

There are several possible reasons. One possible reason is that the marchng band sucks. We suck. Really. We all suck, especially the drum line, and no one really cares. The younger kids, I've realized, don't even know that we suck, because they don't remember what it was like to be good. It used to be that you were expected to come to practice even if you had a raging fever. You were expected to march with intensity. You were expected to stay at attention even if you had a bug on your nose. You were expected to get the music right. All of it. Period. For some reason, these things aren't expected anymore. People walk around on the field. People skip practices. People skip performances. The vast majority of people don't watch the drum major. Some people will continue to talk when Eric or Schultz or I look right at them and say, "stop talking!" When people screw up, they laugh. This has been going on for a while. Every year I'm in marching band, we get worse. It bothers me a lot that I am witnessing - and perhaps contributing to - the gradual decline of something I care about deeply.

Another possible reason is that it is starting to become more and more apparant that my friends are significantly smarter than me. Especially Molly and Dave. They take AP physics and BC calc, and I don't, and they talk about it all the time, and I don't understand it. I don't think I would understand it even if I were in the classes. I'm not sure when this happened - when I stopped being a hardcore math/science person. Maybe it happened when we all realized that we had to start making decisions about college and life, and I decided to be a musician, and Molly and Dave decided to be engineers. Maybe they've always been smarter than me, and I'm just starting to notice it now. I hate it though. I hate not being smart enough to be considered special. I hate not being smart enough to keep up with the conversation. I hate that I'm not like them anymore. The thought of Molly and Dave doing physics together bothers me more than the thought of them making out.

Wait, I'm still good at physics! I felt good at physics when I was in physics. I got an eight hundred on the physics fucking SAT2. That means I'm smart! Then why am I in AB calc? Why are there things in AB calc I don't understand? Why do Molly and Dave have to explain things in sci-fi movies to me? Why do they read twice as fast as me? We were hanging out reading webcomics the other day, and they read twice as fast as me. They were reading faster than I could even process concepts. And making fun of me for not being able to keep up.

Something's been weird with Molly lately in general. She's been really sensitive. Really emotional. Pretty bitchy, actually. All artificially perky and happy one minute, and the next minute freaking out about nothing or being a condescending jerk. She tends to be that way a little - when she knows how to do something and you don't, she immediately projects the attitude "what is wrong with you?" But it's been a lot more noticable. Because I was annoyed with her today, and feeling insecure about not being smart enough, I picked a math fight with her. I asked her to explain a problem I didn't understand, and I'm pretty sure it was just to prove to myself that she is a condescending jerk. And it worked. She was a huge jerk about it. She projected the attitude "what is wrong with you?" really, really hard. I asked myself whether I was happy.

She's been touchy. Really touchy. She plays the awkward game all the time, to the point where it's not even the awkward game. It's artificial. I hate it. I don't understand when this happened - when she started being girly. I get the impression, a little bit, still, that now that she's getting some she doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.

I feel like a shitty person, talking behind her back like this. I feel like maybe I'm just bitter. Bitter about not living up to my own expectations, and bitter about being uptight and lonely and sexually frustrated. Still. Maybe I have to suck it up. Maybe I have to redefine my ideas so that self worth is not measured in IQ. Maybe I need to stop being such an elitist and accept that it is okay not to be the best. Maybe I need to get a fucking boyfriend.

I haven't been able to sleep. I can't relax. My body's all tense and I feel unsettled, and when I do fall asleep I have dreams where Mr. Thomas is yelling at me and my friends are leaving me and my jazz band fails. I am investing a lot in my jazz band. I think it is becoming a new obsession. I should have learned my lesson about obsessing after the last two obsessions.

I have a headache. This entry is not proofread. It will be edited.