My Anna

My Anna. As she gets older, little nuances of her personality are really starting to present themselves. One thing that I'm seeing time and time again is that my girl has inherited my social ineptitude. She does really well on a one-on-one basis with friends, but you put her in a group of children and she either flips out, or she goes off to play quietly by herself. One of the first instances of this that I saw was this past May, when we went to the beach with a couple of other families. There were 3 little girls total, staying in this house. I noticed that Anna was often times the odd man out and you could see the hurt and confusion on her face. At one point, when the two other girls were playing happily with one another, Anna asked her friend, "Are you still my friend?". It broke my heart into a million pieces because I understood exactly what she was feeling.

I'm not a social person. A large party, with people who I don't know is hell for me. Fortunately (or unfortunately...I'm not always sure) my husband is a social butterfly and he loves, more than anything else, being among new people and making conversation. I can often times latch onto him and float along with him at a party but that tires us both out after awhile. In fact, I can remember many a party where I was most comfortable finding the family pet and spending my evening petting and visiting with the dog or cat (or Madagascar hissing cockroaches) and being perfectly content and happy. I foresee Anna doing the same thing one day. This past weekend, we were at a fun gathering at some friends' house. There were lots of kids Anna's age--all of whom she's played with before and also sees at school all the time. At one point, I looked outside to see all of the kids playing on the swingset, shrieking with delight. When I did a quick headcount and noticed that Anna wasn't among them, I started looking around for her. I found her inside the house, quietly looking at books in the playroom by herself. I was equal parts sad for her and proud of her for knowing her limits.

In a sense, I'm glad that I'm the way that I am, so that I can help Anna to cope (although, I don't always recommend the sitting in the corner with the family dog-technique for navigating social situations) because I don't think that Kevin understands where she's coming from. I understand what it feels like and I want her to feel confident and okay with the fact that not everyone is a social being and that it's better to be true to yourself, rather than to have to put on an act and be inauthentic and miserable the whole time--because that's not going to win you any friends either.

The song, "Still Fighting It" by Ben Folds runs through my head a lot when I think of my Anna:

Everybody knows
It hurts to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
And you're so much like me
I'm sorry