This Will Only Hurt a Little(4)
It’s funny that “FOMO” has become a thing people say. But my feeling left out and left alone obviously has some deep roots. It’s real and it hurts, if you’re someone who has always felt left out. Which I have. It’s a recurring theme in my life.
In my immediate family, I’ve always felt different. I’ve certainly always looked different. My mom and dad and sister all have dark hair and dark eyes, and here I showed up, this little blond-haired, blue-eyed weirdo. I remember hating when my mom would laugh and shrug and say, “I guess she must be the milkman’s baby!” But also, like most of the weird things my mom would say, she would then immediately and kind of seriously say, “No . . . actually, Busy looks just like Joe’s sister and my mother.” (And I do look exactly like them, so take that, milkman!)
? ? ?
People (in the world, not People-mag-dot-com, which is my favorite online publication but also the source of so much agitation for me because they insist on posting horrible stories about children being murdered) have often made a point of how loyal I seem to be as a friend. And it’s true. I’m one of those people who will friend you for life, if you’ll have me. But that’s in part due to my own fear of being left out.
I remember in fifth grade when all the girls turned against me in classic mean-girl puberty style. Girls who had been my best friends since I’d moved to Arizona were suddenly so mean to me that some days, on the playground at lunch, Noah Guttell and Seth Kasselman would take pity and let me hang with them on the bleachers while they talked about the Beatles. One morning, after my friends had been particularly cruel the day before, I was sobbing in my bed, not wanting to go to school, and my mom let me play hooky. She took me to the movies to see The Little Mermaid instead, which is one of the saddest/happiest memories of my life. I’ll never forget sitting there in the dark, eating popcorn and watching my favorite Disney movie ever with my mom in the middle of the day when I should have been at school. In that moment, I felt like she fundamentally understood me, like she knew how best to take care of me.
Really, I think acting was the thing I clung to because I was a part of something. And also, it meant that I got the attention of the people I so desperately wanted to see me, for at least thirty to forty-five minutes every few months, when I would perform in whatever weird play or showcase I was currently doing. Plus, I was good at it. People always tell me I’m lucky to have known what I wanted to do since I was eight years old, but honestly, I think there’s a piece of me that felt like it was all I could do because it’s the only time I really ever feel like I’m a part of things. Because the girl who’s the lead in the school play can’t be left out, right? You would think.
But it’s funny, because with acting—the thing I’m best at, the thing where I feel I belong the most—I still feel left out all the time. Somehow, I’ve managed to choose the absolute hardest profession for someone who tends to feel forgotten and worries about not being seen. I’ve had so many days in the past twenty years where I just want to stay in bed crying until my mom shows up to take me to see The Little Mermaid in the middle of the day.
But in all my therapy over the years and all my talking to friends and all my social media–ing, I’ve determined that just about everyone feels left out; it just comes down to how you handle it. I haven’t handled it the best, historically speaking. But I’m trying to get better. And truthfully, isn’t there something incredible about the fact that we all feel left out? Shouldn’t that somehow make us all feel a little less alone??
Maybe I do need to change the way I see two-year-old me. Maybe I need to start looking at it more the way my mother does. But the facts remain. When I was two, I took a walk around the block. What’s up for grabs is what it means to you. It’s like a litmus test: Do you see a sad, left-alone baby wandering the streets, or a determined little kid who wanted to see the world and decided to ace out in her nudes and make it happen for herself?
I guess it really just depends who you ask.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
(Nirvana)
There’s no denying I was never one of the popular kids in school. I know that a lot of people who have gone on to become successful in whatever field they chose tend to have this same narrative. And I don’t want to be one of those annoying good-looking people who’s like, “I swear I was such a nerd, guys!” Also, I totally appreciate that sometimes people feel like outsiders even when they’re the head cheerleader, or whatever. But, come on . . . be honest! You were still the head fucking cheerleader, you know?!
It’s similar to when super-skinny actresses insist they just eat whatever they want! I mean . . . ! I used to fall for that, but now I know better. Yes. You can totally eat whatever you want. As long as it’s literally like three bites of that thing and then you stop. I remember a friend of mine recounting a date he went on with an actress (she’s famous, guys) and he was initially impressed when she ordered the fried chicken. But then she proceeded to pick the fried part off and eat like three bites of white meat before she declared how full she was. Those are fake eaters, my friends. And they are everywhere in my town.
Anyway, the point is, my friends and I were not exactly the head cheerleaders. Not that head cheerleaders even exist in elementary school. They don’t. Unless maybe if you live in Texas. But you get it. We weren’t necessarily nerds, but we for sure weren’t considered popular. The popular girls did things like have coed parties and kiss their boyfriends in sixth grade and wear Esprit and big earrings and read Sweet Valley High. We played games like Store for the Stars, where we would take “business meetings” (which consisted of ordering iced teas and bread baskets at Buster’s, a local bistro we could ride our bikes to), and we read the Baby-Sitters Club (way less cool) and the only boys we were friends with had no interest in kissing any of us.