Lost In the Prairies.....Found by God

I was a social loser in high school.  Many people I now know are shocked when I tell them this.  They think I'm strong and confident.  They say I'm a leader.  I'm organized.  I have it all together.  That may be (ok, I really don't have it all together), but I was still a social outcast in school.  I was a member of the Library Club and fringe member of Student Council (I was one of the lackies).  I played Mrs. Lynch in our school's version of Grease.  I was a member of the Health Squad - a group in support of healthy lifestyles in our school.   Ironically, all my friends were smokers.  I had good grades.  I did not hang with the cool kids, nor did I dress like them, nor did I go where they went.  I went my own way.  I tread through the path less travelled and it was difficult.  I was tormented and ridiculed.  Because I chewed gum - a lot - the cool boys decided that it would be great to call me "Chewy" and not in a nice way.  In fact, a few years after high school while walking down the road, two of the boys referred to me as that.  It just goes to show that girls really do mature faster than boys. 

Now that I am adult, I pretty much am a leader.  When I struggled to find a Bible study group, I roped some friends into starting one.  When I wanted to do Big Cook, I again roped some friends into one.  I don't care what people think of me (ok, not too much).  I pretty am "a what you see, is what you get" person.  I'm loud and outgoing.  I'm a social butterfly.  I love to be part of a group.

Now you may be wondering where this is going.  I've become the outcast again.  No, no, not because of the move.  Even though until the fall, I have felt out of sorts here in town.  But on Twitter.  I have 131 followers (25% of which are probably people just wanting me to do business with them), but yet I can post a tweet and have no responses.  When we first moved, I suffered from depression for a while.  I tweeted that I could use prayer as I was struggling.  Only one person responded.  I'm not asking for a million responses, but I thought I had more twitter friends than that.  

It seems to me that I'm also an outcast in some respects because I don't homeschool, but send my kids to school.  I don't think this is a conscious division.  I have many homeschooling friends who I love to chat to.  But many of the tweets I see all have to do with homeschooling, or curriculum or organzation.  These are great things and I'm glad for my homeschooling friends.  My husband and I have made the decision that the kids will go to school.  I'm sure that if we homeschooled that we would do quite well.  I don't think, however, if we homeschooled that someone wouldn't get hurt by the end of the day and it wouldn't be me.  My children are just like me - independent.  They do very well when being taught at school and thrive in that environment.  It also allows me time to get things done around the house and spend time with the Tormentinator.  Once he's in school, I'll have to figure out what to do at that stage.  

The last reason that I feel like I'm an outcast is that I'm not going to Relevant 11 and I'm tired of hearing about everyone going.  Yes, it is pure jealousy.  When you see all the tweets about it, you can become resentful and feel left out.  I actually think this is regarding all the conferences that I miss out on.  I live in Canada.  We have one conference that I would probably want to go to - Blissdom.  This is held in Toronto.  The flight cost alone is almost $1000.  The flights to any where in Canada can get prohibitive.  It just is.  If there were a conference in the province where I live, I probably would go; but there isn't and it seems like most of the conferences I want to go to are all in the Southern States.  It is actually cheaper for me to fly to Europe than Eastern Canada or the Southern States.  That's it, we need to hold a bloggy conference in Europe and then I'll go.

I know I'm whining.  I really am not an outcast.  Twitter isn't how I value myself.  But I can see where social networking can lead to depression.  If you feel like being my twitter friend my handle is @lostinprairies.  That is if you can tweet with the social outcast I am. 

Come link up with your randomness today.