I Have Small Talk Anxiety

I am so conflicted about my high school reunion this weekend. 

There was a picture taken at our ten year reunion long ago, which we recently passed around our group text chain of ten. Five girls and five guys. 

The ten of us had wide, youthful smiles. Babies, really. Some of us married. Only one couple of the ten of us. Our eyes big and clear and looking ahead. The rest of our lives was out there waiting. We looked happy together.

The same ten from that ancient picture get together at least yearly. In the scheme of things and as rapidly as a year passes especially as we get older, I feel I just saw them. A mini-reunion every year.

This brings me to my inner conflict. 

“So what’s new?”

This question bugs me for some reason at my age and gives me great anxiety. If I haven’t seen you in one, five, twenty-five years and that’s the question you ask? 

I never know where to start so the only answer that comes to mind is, 

“Oh, you know. Status quo. Same old stuff!”

And of course, that’s not true. Tons of shit goes down daily. Who doesn’t if one has a family and responsibilities? Ask me something, anything, more specific!

There was a time where I was fabulously proficient at making idle chit-chat. I had to be because times called for it. But that was oh, so long ago.

Thinking of Saturday, I will be looking at a group of people I haven’t seen in years who are all going to ask me a variation of this same question. Or so it feels to me as I sit here contemplating what to do.

It fills me with anxiety. It just does. I already feel the “fight or flight” response kicking in.

So I asked my hair stylist while in her chair yesterday if I have to go. She said no.

I asked my husband, “Do I have to go to my reunion?”

“I don’t think so. Is it mandatory?”

No, it is not.

I asked three of my closest friends if I have to go. Same response from all of them in one fashion or another, do what I want.

The thing is, I am feeling guilty about it because I said I would go. I also paid $40. Which is nothing compared to the Uber fees I will incur riding to and from the city out to the venue.

It’s not a money thing really. It is an anxiety issue. Or at the very least a “I’d rather be doing anything else” feeling. It is sitting in my gut quite heavily.

For me, it’s about finding comfort and peace and being where my heart wants to be and that is not at my reunion this weekend with old classmates that I don’t keep in touch with because maybe we didn’t want to after all. 

It feels forced.

I will most probably see “The Ten” around the holidays. They will give me shit for not going and I will have a handful excuses on the tip of my tongue. And of course, they won’t buy what I am selling. But it will all be all right anyway.

Do You Ever Experience FOMO?

Do you know what "FOMO" means? My 23-year-old niece threw it out as a response to something I asked her this summer. I don’t even remember what my question was because I was so surprised and curious about her very short answer. I had to confess I did not know.

#FOMO. 

(By the way she didn’t say, “Hash Tag, FOMO.” I just imagine their would be a hash tag here.) 

“Aunt Gina, FOMO. The fear of missing out.”

I can shamelessly admit that I do not have my finger on the pulse of 20s-something lingo.

quickmeme.com

I didn’t respond like Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, but I did ask her every time I saw her that weekend. 

“Stephanie, what was that saying again?” 

“FOMO, the fear of missing out!”

“Got it!”

Do you suffer from FOMO? Ever?

I used to think I did not. I’m usually pretty happy the majority of time with what I have chosen to do. Notice I didn’t say what I have or should do (sometimes I think it is just their connotation like having to do the laundry which I should be doing while I write this). And it’s been a while since I can remember feeling a sense of FOMO. That is until this weekend.

This last week, I traveled with my mother to California, Santa Monica and Malibu to be exact, to visit family friends that she and my dad met while they were on their honeymoon 56 years ago. They have been close friends since then, and their kids, primarily their youngest daughter, and I have been friends since we were born. Close.

It was fun. I had fun. My mother is fun. She always has fun.

But at the time I planned this “fun” trip for my mom and myself, I didn’t realize it was my (senior-ish in college) son’s Fall break. It would be the first time he was coming home since the summer, and to our new place in the city. My daughter lives in the city, too. Suffice it to say, my family had a blast this past weekend going out, chilling out, and hanging out. Without me.

I was melancholy and conflicted, for sure. Even though I wanted to be walking on the beach in sunshine rather than rain, laughing with my childhood friends about all the things we did while our parents weren’t paying attention, and indulging in whatever I wanted to indulge, I was feeling the FOMO.

As much fun as I was having, I couldn’t get "home" out of my mind. 

I wanted to be there. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to go out to dinner, laugh at inside jokes, listen to my kids bicker, smile at my husband because we were all together, and happily (kind of) do their laundry. 

I knew what I was missing. I felt it in my bones, in my head, and in my heart. It kind of hurt. The FOMO had legs, and it was running.

When I finally got home, the house was quiet. There were telltale signs of each of them, and their fun, and there was laundry to do, but only mine.

[Sigh]