Skoch's Recital Concert

It was one of those evenings when it's hard to leave the house. Except you don't realize how hard until you're already out, and then you regret it.
Not that I actually regret going. The concert was fabulous, excellent, and amusing. The back-up band called themselves "The Coat Hangers." I think my favorite song was "Play That Funky Music White Boy." As well as having fantastic music, they had a bar fridge and couch on stage, and when a member of the band was exempt from a song he'd pop open a soda and relax. And Skoch played one of the songs with his guitar behind his back. It was awesome.
Everyone in the band was someone I have cared about significantly or vicariously. That meant I owed them the loyalty of being there (which I was glad to give), and that also made me uncomfortable. Because we're not in each other's lives anymore. And I just feel awkward around school crowds - not just them but everyone there. I didn't want to mingle during intermission.

I was so grateful to be beside a friend, someone who remains in my life and whose friendship I really value. I sat there imagining how I might introduce her to someone, and I surprised myself by the strength of the terms I'd use to describe our friendship. But whenever I think of expressing it to her, I lose all my words.
We sat in the front row, so we had a great view - but once things got started I all the sudden feared that I was much too boring, bland, and tired to be in the front row. Sigh. And at the end of the concert I discovered that I am afraid of participation. Big sigh.

I spent the concert thinking...
People are busy. They already pretty much have enough friends. Especially the fabulous people. I don't dare ask for anything... especially when I don't have much to give in return.
When I thought back to that time of life and re-immersed myself in that setting, I found myself asking, "Was I loved?" as if that was the question of utmost significance. Most of me answers, "Not enough." But part of me knows that the people surrounding me were loving, and that if I didn't feel loved that's not entirely their fault. I don't think that I felt like I was able to love them well, and then I didn't know how to receive their love for me.
I know that my true friends loved me, and somehow that seems tangential to the problem. I mourn the fact that I didn't feel loved, known, and accepted by the entire group, and that I wasn't able to feel or show that I cared for the group at large. Having a few true friends doesn't fix that. Unfortunately.