My Experiences with Neurosis

          Daylight by Harry          Styles.          -My Experiences with          Neurosis          
         
         
         In junior high in the late 1970's, I was as cool as the sun's center. The sad part about that was that I didn't know it. From roller skating to the Bee Gees, wearing bell bottoms pants or shorty-shorts, or sporting sideburns like all the cool kids did.
         I could not skate for my life; I wore bootcut jeans because I wore cowboy boots (forget about shorty shorts) and received buzz cuts from my mom four times a year. Yes, sir, I was one of the cool kids in my mind.
         All I needed to finish my delusional self-image, er, I mean my positive self-worth, was to associate with those who are the type of individuals I was striving to be more like.          
         There was a girl one grade below mine I liked. We were friends as we participated in many of the same activities together. In other words, She was in sports and Cheerleading, and I went to games and saw her there. To my credit, I cheered pretty loudly (under my breath).
         In all seriousness, whenever the opportunity arose, I talked with her about Cheerleading and her athletic participation, and she demonstrated an interest in her academics. All the time I did this, I was the perfect gentleman and didn't press any buttons of a boy/girl relationship or anything serious. I kept it noticeably light. I only knew her last name because her older sister was in my grade, and she was a basket case.
         About two months after I started being nice to her, let's call her Jocey, because that's her name, one of her friends came up to tell me she didn't like me! Where in Hade's jockstrap did that come from? I was still trying to figure out how to ask her to sit with me at a basketball game where she and I would already be, and she dumped me before we were even an item.
         I thought this when I had my first neurosis occurrence.
         When I went to school the next day, I noticed I was the attention of many stares and awkward silences as I walked by gaggles of girls by their lockers or herds of guys by the water fountain staring/not staring at me as I walked by. It wasn't until college that I learned the phrase "Dead Man Walking" that I fully understood their actions.
         After the sixth period, I was called to the Guidance Counsellor's office. I spent an hour talking about my feelings to an older woman of sixty-eight with a bad case of smoker's-hack. A fourteen-year-old boy spoke about his emotions to a stranger old enough to be his grandmother.
         I know I had my first neurosis occurrence during this conversation--a couple of them.


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