People Were At My Birthday Party

Growing up, I was kind of a failure when it came to social skills. I related to my peers by being loud for attention. Maybe it started in Kindergarten or first grade; I remember being called "kissy lips" back then, because for some reason at recess I would pucker my lips at people and chase them when they ran away screaming. I think I picked that up from this other kid, also called "kissy lips," who was fat and who no one liked.
 
A few years later, at summer camp, in most conversations I enjoyed saying "Jupiter" for no reason. People actually did find it pretty funny, and by the end of the week, I wasn't the only one going around yelling "Jupiter."

As I progressed through school, I read a lot of books and got along better with adults than I did with classmates. My ability to behave in socially acceptable ways didn't improve. In fifth grade, my imaginary friend, Princess Louie, had a heart attack on a crowded lunch table. I tried to save her, but my efforts were in vain, and I grieved loudly. On the bus ride home from school, I held a funeral, after which I threw the invisible corpse out a window. My brother and sister were embarrassed to be associated with me. I got used to being called "weird."

By sixth grade, I had begun to engage in the after-school activity of crying every night. I did have friends, but overall I felt unliked. "Weird" had stuck with me. My concerned parents withdrew me from public school and enrolled me into a small private school. I had a new beginning, but no new tactics, and I was weird there, too.

I was thrilled when my family decided to homeschool. By that time, I considered myself definitely socially inept, and it was such a relief to not have to worry about going into a high school environment. Never again would I have to deal with large groups of same-age-as-me strangers.

I assumed I would be on the sidelines of social forever. This usually didn't bother me.

Time passed. I got a real job and learned how real people act. Then, I moved here, to the tiny Army community in South Korea. I started meeting more people my own age and I found out that I actually could make friends. My tactics haven't changed - I'm still loud and weird and enjoy being the center of attention a little too much - but I'm starting to see that everyone is their own type of weird, and that my type is relatively tolerable.

So it's pretty cool that people came to my birthday this past weekend. It was my first big non-family birthday party in fifteen years. Six people attended. Joe decorated the living room, and made dinner and cake, and served crackers with stuff to put on them as hors d'oeuvres. We laughed a lot and played a board game and had jellybeans. It was wonderful.

Crab dip, the surprise appetizer Joe made me. OHHHH YEAHHHH.

Tuna & triscuits with my favorite brand of pepper jack cheese

The chunks in the cake are Dove dark chocolate. I love Joe.

We were being models.