Ridiculous Teenhood Complaints- My Bar Mitzvah

I don't talk about my bar mitzvah. It was an awful experience that embarrasses me and I'm sure it will stick in my families heads fkr ever. We won't let my younger go through what I went. 

 I know I'm only 15, and all my complaints may seem ridiculous, but whatever. Nobody will ever read through all of this because most people are selfish and only care for themselves. That's not a bad thing, that's how people are. They don't REALLY care about what other people think, they're just being nice, and that's ok. I voiced my opinion on this subject to my sister once and she thought me crazy for thinking so. But I speak with many people and I see how they react. They black out while you speak and when they finally get the chance to speak the awake not remembering a work that was said.  Usually they just want to say their bit in the conversation and don't really listen to what you're saying, just bits and parts. They don't want to hear about other people's problems, they want to share their own. I'm not like that. I don't like speaking of my problem. Yes, I talk about myself a lot, but no. I talk about my family, and I tell stories about my family. Sometimes I tell stories of things that happen to me, but I don't talk about me. According to almost everyone I have spoken to, it's just "so great" speaking to me, but that's not it. First of all, I'm not bragging in any way, I'm just pointing it out. The only reason people say that is because I like to listen to people. I try to listen and get all the details of the conversation. I like hearing people's problems. I like listening to people. That's how I learn more about the person I'm speaking with. I listen. I want to know. I literally don't know anybody like this. Who wants to hear about a 15-year-old boy's complaints? I'm so young; I'm just a typical teenage boy who hates everything and everyone, right? I am not 80; I am not writing an autobiography; I am 15, and I am fed up with everyone making fun of me and driving me crazy for being different. I'm trying to be a nice person, so I don't react; I keep the temper under layers deep inside. If I let it out, I am considered crazy. 

One bit at a time though. Breath. 

In this page, I'm just gonna complain. I think writing these things down is a good thing to do. It might clear my head out a bit. 

I've been a teenager for a few years now, and from the very beginning, it was awful. I'm not kidding. 

I'll go back to when it really started - my bar mitzvah. A boy becomes a man when he turns 13. This is when the real stress starts. About a year before, the boy starts learning how to lein his bar mitzvah parsha. I had to memorize the whole thing by tune. It was extremely stressful. I don't do well with two things- stress and confrontation.  On the big day when I had to actually lein, I found out something terrible - I had no idea what I was doing. I went up to the bimah when they called my name. Our schul was quiet; there weren't many kids, just a bunch of adults. So when the women in my family started making noise and throwing candy, it was kind of awkward. Nobody bent down to get the candy and the kids that were there seemed rather confused. This kind of set me off a bit. This is how it should normally go: the boy goes up, says what he needs to say, a new person comes up, the boy moves to the right side of the bimah while the new person says what he has to say. After that, the boy can leave. That's how it should go.                                 I was given a tallit and awkwardly put it on for the first time. I looked at the Torah I was about to read from, and felt extremely unprepared. I read out the blessings before I had to read out the parsha, which I was unfamiliar with. Then it was time. A guy stood next to me wearing a tallit and holding a metal finger meant to point to where I am in the reading and guide my reading. My heart was thumping, the pressure was stressful. I started reading. I think I did well for a couple of sentences. I thought I was doing well the whole time. This was until a man screamed out a correction. I got a word wrong. I corrected myself quickly and continued reading a bit more, but the guy didn't hear me correct myself. He screamed again. A guy from the crowd screamed, "He's a kid, don't bother him." This meant, to me at least, that I was definitely doing something wrong. At that point, my head blanked out. I didn't remember the tune anymore. I didn't remember how it was supposed to go. I made up the details as I went on and couldn't wait until it was over. I knew I was doing it wrong. When I finally finished, I let out a sigh of relief and looked down at the floor covered in candy. I bent down, collected some candy and started walking off the bimah with candy in my hands. The whole schul was looking at me. I did something wrong. What did I do wrong? Was the candy holy for landing on a holy area? Did I accidently take something I want supposed to? I looked around nervously trying to find out what was wrong. Somebody finally told me I had to stay on the bimah. What? Nobody ever told me about this. I don't remember this. What did I have to do? I could hardly memorize the big I had to memorize how can I do any more? I stood to the right, confused, while a new guy came up and started reading. When he finished, I got off. I reached my seat where my dad's and my uncle's faces were in shock. I did horribly. I sat down quietly. Saying this event traumatized me would not be an understatement. I am, to this day, quite scared to go up to the bimah to do anything. I especially dread the Simchas Torah reading when everyone in the schul has to lein. This is when it all started. My teenhood. And I started off on the wrong foot. 

The bar mitzvah party was also a bit strange. The plan was to start the party at 19:00 with my friends and have my family join at 20:00. At 17:00, I took a shower and met up with the photographer at 17:15. We took a bunch of pictures, and only some turned out nicely. We drove down to the hall where two of my friends were, but I didn't run into them for about half an hour. I went around making sure everything was nice and ready. Because of the pandemic, there were big plastic see-through curtains all over the hall. Imma came up with the idea to tie them up and put balloons to make it look like a decoration. It worked! So I set up the tables and ran around setting up. Yocheved and Liron came and helped. Rav Shlomy came at some point and then went outside to wait for the relatives to come. He didn't know about my schedule. I felt bad for him. I think all my friends came. Imma hired a bar mitzvah DJ. He was supposed to have games and music, but that was really bad. His games were really weird, and he didn't have any music. Abba was still in his avlut, so he couldn't hear music. Sometime while my friends were still there, the Simpsons and Savta got there, which meant we had to kick my friends out. They benched without me - which now I see is very weird. We then all went outside where we had fire poppers. We played with those for a few minutes, took pictures, and then they left. In this time, my distant cousins Mimi, Elisha, and Rachel got there. When I got into the hall, I found out my cousin, who is autistic, fell over and lay there for a few seconds not moving. That got everyone scared, and they had to call Magen David Adom. While this was going on, I was half an hour late to setting up the Zoom call, which was hard to set up without Wi-Fi in the hall. I found out later they thought they were going to watch me lein. There was a bunch of commotion for a few minutes. My cousins were crying because they were scared, and I was confused and rushing around. At some point, it was time for my speech, and I noticed I forgot it at home, so I ran back to get it. I said the speech, but I failed and did it badly. My aunt wrote it for me. It was a wonderful speech, but I ruined it as is my nature. Finally, it was time for the family pictures before the photographer has to leave. I later found out that my mom wasn't in any of the group pictures because she was running around cleaning up and making sure everything was going well.