I Only Pretended to Be

Some of us must be going
   Some of us have to stay
Some of us may be showing
   Some just fade away
                     - Joe Walsh

I failed miserably in high school. I'm not talking grades and classes, just socially. I wanted to be so much more than things actually turned out. What I wanted to do and what I got, were in reality, who I was. I didn't fully realize it until older, nor at the time did I accept the truth about myself. I only pretended to be. 
A lengthy lists of try-outs and maybes: the sophomore football team, a position on the yearbook staff, Key Club member, the tennis team, ROTC, singing in the choir, in the Senior Play. Either cowarding out at the last minute like I often do or not making the final cut, I settled instead for nothing. BA was a big school, lots of talent and competition for the few slots of fame.
Perhaps, I made the crucial mistake of aspiring for too much and not focusing on one or two at best; concentrating all effort into them. After all, I was just an ordinary average high school boy with dreams of some success and popularity at school, nice clothes, a good paying grocery sacking job, along with a smooth running '56 Chevy Bel Aire and a steady girl on the bench seat beside me. 
For things were not the best at home and with the ol' adolescence Psyche. It wasn't easy being an insecure product of divorced parents. Although appreciative of my mother who had to work long hours on her waitress' feet to provide, she could not comfort. I needed my dad in those days of difficulty growing into a man.
And abilities don't necessarily match the mind. I wish I had believed in myself more back then. Dreams dissolved into all-too-common discouragement.  I lacked the acceptance of failure and feared most rejection. It proved personally crippling, arising to confront me on a number of occasions. I craved acceptance and complexly cared what others thought of me--my mistake. I truly wanted to have happiness in fulfilment. I only pretended to be.