Saturday, March 04, 2023

Andi/Andy: Just Having a GREAT Senior Year

Sarcasm, obviously.

Andy and I talked about a lot of concerns in our last update, but at the time I felt I had really exaggerated them.  Not intentionally, just kind of writing more about the stuff that elicits strong feelings rather than the way things would probably be okay and eventually get back to normal.  But they didn't.

First, Andy broke up with Len.  And on the one hand, good for him!  Len always seemed to be a pretty okay guy, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention to things with his previous girlfriends or what, but he was really up in Andy's business all the time, acting like his girlfriend had to run all sort of things by him, and that's certainly not the way I want to be treated when I'm a girl again, and I feel pretty sure that Cindi appreciates me not doing that (although, uh, more on that in a bit).  Lots more touching than Andy felt he signed up for, especially when he wore anything that left skin bare or hinted at a figure (which he does a little more, because he mostly goes shopping with Shawna, and she sure seems to like crop tops a lot more than she did when we were hanging out)

On the other hand, it's ugly, because Andy really resisted the idea that his best friend would be a bad boyfriend for a long time, and he really didn't want to dump Len, so he's crying as he does it but still not relenting, and Len gets angry.  Not hitting-Andy angry or anything, but "bitch" was yelled a few times, and then he stews about it with other friends, maybe not consciously trying to outnumber me, but setting up situations where someone will say "I can't believe your sister dumped your best friend" and I'm just like "did you really think you were going to get me to talk shit about someone I shared a womb with?", almost wanting to tell them exactly how fucked up it was that they thought I was going to take Len's side against Andy.

Anyway, I mostly hang out with Cindi and her friends now, which is weird, because I never would have been part of that group as myself, but as her boyfriend, it's even weirder, because I'm still kind of on the outside looking in at time but from a different window, and there's a big part of me that still wants to hate them but also wants them to like me as one of them.  Ugh.

...

Okay, so I wrote all that in October and I guess didn't hit publish?  Anyway, Homecoming was weird because of all that drama, but we all survived.  Somehow, Cindi and I still haven't done it, mostly because there haven't been a whole lot of solo dates.  A lot of her friends were dating a year up, and so their boyfriends are off in college, or breaking up, and now the girls just hang and me and another boyfriend are kind of part of the gang.  The time it did look like we were going to wind up in bed, her period came early, and I totally get her feeling gross, obviously.  I'm almost feeling like we might wind up not, since Mom and Dad have booked a room at the Inn again so we can get back to normal after graduation.

Although as to what else comes after graduation...  I don't know.  Andy kind of blew my SATs and Achievements, and his/my first-semester grades were way below where they should be, even considering that we registered for classes last spring when we thought we would be back in our own lives.  I admit, I had a little trouble with his public speaking and Asian History electives, but I pulled off Bs.  He also had to quit one of my extracurriculars because it just wasn't working out.

I'm trying not to be upset.  Both Mom and Dad talk about a lot of people who got stressed out over the past couple years because the pandemic was constantly throwing them for a loop even if they never caught Covid, and we've certainly been under similar stresses.  Maybe I'm handling it better for some reason or another, or maybe I'm messing up in ways I just can't see.

I'm hoping that the essays I'm writing for my college applications will counter the hit my standardized tests and GPA have taken, but I don't know.  It's frustrating, because we can see the end ahead of us, and we really thought we'd be able to get through without messing up.

-Andi-with-an-i