Sometimes being an adult is very much like being a kid. Recently, I had the occasion of being the one “not invited” to a party. I’ve not often been that person because usually I get invited to everything. Or I do at the various places I’ve inhabited. I’ve inhabited a lot of places, a lot of colleges, a lot of town, a lot of boyfriends, a lot of different utility companies. I’ve not had the occasion to feel “left out” very often but today I got to feel that way when I saw a picture of a party that was held on Memorial Day with all of my, or many of my “friends.”¬†¬† They were having a “dog wedding” and uniting two of their pooches. It was an odd thing to see, though, as I’d heard nothing about it. So I got to feel depressed and left out, like a nine year-old. I guess it’s good to feel this once in a while so that when Emma comes to me and tells me how badly she’s hurt because she’s “left out” of a group I can sympathize with her because it sucks and it hurts. You learn a valuable lesson from it, though. You learn who your friends, who your REAL friends are. Emma had a birthday party recently and I invited only her best friends. They just happen to be the kids no one else on the schoolyard gets along with, which made the decision somewhat easier; I didn’t want Emma to be in a position of having to get turned down by kids who didn’t want to come anyway and I couldn’t really afford a big party.

But it sort of grounds things to a halt and it becomes easy to see with clarity who is going to matter in the long run. I decided right then and there that these people are probably not real friends. They’re friends for the moment but our lives are so different, so utterly and vastly different that it’s impossible to be real friends with them; they don’t know what my life is like and I certainly have no idea what their lives are like. It was an interesting moment for me and one that helps to make the very difficult decision about where to move from here.

Yes, it probably sounds silly to you (whomever might even be reading this) but it was something I JUST HAD to get off my chest. And now I feel better.