May 8, 2012

Follow-Up to My Lonely Weekend

For those who were wondering about my weekend last week following this post--it was a successful failure.  But what I reenforced to myself was that it is more painful to live with not trying than it is to try and fail.  Here’s why:

My practice hair-do bombed.  I had to go out as I normally look, but I was out like I promised myself I would be, so I felt good anyway.  Sort of powerful.  A hair-do might have helped, but not that much.

Traffic was so terrible that I had to give up on going to the festival, and instead headed right down to that party.  I am out of my element in a pub, and no one I knew ended up showing up.  Talk about awkward!  But people were friendly and curious, and when the attention was thankfully not on me I sat by the window sipping a rum and coke and smiling in what I hoped would be an inviting way as I let people move around me.  I met a lot of people that way.  And you know how you meet someone and you both say, “We should do this again sometime” but neither of you even bother to exchange phone numbers?  Well I met people I actually want to keep in touch with, and I have actually done so.  (I also maintain one of the bar staff was checking me out repeatedly throughout the night.  I have terrible self esteem so if I got that impression, there must have been something to notice about his behavior, right?)

I did try to get to the festival the next day.  Had to pep-talk at myself all over again.  I actually arrived on the grounds, and feeling horribly intimated, walked double-time towards what I hoped were the ticket booths with my head down pretending to text on my phone.  I felt like everyone was staring.  “Oh look at her, she’s all alone...”  And when I got to the booth, they told me tickets were sold out for the day.  Shocked and disappointed, I took a very long way back to the car, a path that included a shady street in order to avoid passing those same staring people a second time.  They would know I was stupid enough not to pre-order.  However, not being able to go in allowed me the day to get so much work done that really did need to get done, and I had a lovely lunch at a restaurant I've wanted to try for years, so that was a bonus. 

By Sunday I was exhausted.  There was no way I was going to be able to pluck up the courage to make a third attempt!  It was time to cut my losses.  One of my favorite events of the year, missed.  I opted to give priority to my family, and then if I had time, maybe I’d go down and catch the tail end of everything.  I found out they sold out of tickets for that day, too, but I ended up not having time at all, so it was rather moot.  There was actually quite a bit of outrage at the number of people who did get turned away this year, and watching all that ugly rage allowed me to look at my disappointment and shrug.  There was always next year.  And next year I’d learn from my mistake and pre-order.  Or maybe I’d look at helping out the function by volunteering instead, since they really seemed to have needed it this year.  Good way to meet people with whom I have things in common.  So I was able to let go of my own feelings.  I had tried, and it might not have worked out but dealing with negative emotions is an opportunity to grow.  You learn more from failure than success, right?

I guess I’m more resilient than I think.


The series of posts geared toward young girls with hirsutism continues later this week!

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