No Excuse for Feeling Alone

When we lived in Virginia and South Carolina, I almost had an excuse for being alone.  We're in the Navy, so we just moved and it's really hard to meet people other than the people Andy works with.  We loved having people over, some people were really nice while some just embodied the annoying "gung-ho" Navy idiots who wanted nothing more than a good drink.  I told myself that I hated the Navy and was wary of the people who were in it.  Yes, there are good people in the Navy.  I have met many of them; probably more good than bad.  But it's the bad ones that change things for you.

But now I have no excuse for being alone.  I am back in my hometown.  I suppose lots of people have moved away.  Yes, most of them have.  But the one main difference is that I'm a mom now and it just doesn't work socially to hang out with old, single friends.  They're just not interested in that right now.

I need to focus on the positive, I need to get out of this fog.  I go to a MOMs 3 and under playgroup on Thursday.  This is something I've been wanting to do for a while - get together with a bunch of local, stay-at-home moms and really connect.  Just to have people who can somewhat understand what you're going through and won't freak out when you have to change a diaper while hanging out.  I'm afraid, though.  I'm afraid that all the other moms will be a lot older than I am and that they will look down on me for that.  I'm afraid that my shyness will come off as aloofness or haughtiness, as it has in the past.  I am afraid that no one will take notice of me and I'll just sit there the whole time and not really connect with anyone.  This seems to happen a lot.  At a recent semi-annual meeting we had at the ranch with a bunch of people my Dad works with, I was left alone with the girls to eat dinner.  We set up our spots at the arranged tables while everyone was in the buffet line and were therefore the last ones to go through the line.  After I arranged the girls at the table, I went to get us food, but everyone decided to go outside.  Then Andy asked if he could go sit outside because that was the whole reason we were there, was so that he could meet and talk with people.  "This is your life now," my mom says.  Screw that.  I had planned before we even heard about this thing to go to the California Science Center and have a family day.  I've been wanting to go there ever since we got there, but someone or something always gets in the way.  It makes me so mad, as if I'm not in control of my life.  Other people who don't really care about me or my talents or what other wonderful things I could be doing.
My mom later apologized for me eating alone.  She had sat at the next table along with 7-8 other guests.  The whole time I was wondering, why doesn't she invite me over?  I wasn't just going to move myself, Emma, and Lizzie in her stroller with all her food without being invited.  There was plenty of room, although in her apology today she said that there wasn't.  Never mind.  No sense being bitter.

People left that party not knowing who I was.  Isn't that someone's job to introduce me?  Or am I just the floater?  The random girl with the two cute little girls who no one really knows who she is or where her place is.  So I left.  I took the girls and we went to see the birds, pick oranges, and play in the grass.  We watched the fish in the pond and had a decent time.  The one conversation I had with someone who was not in my family lasted maybe five minutes.

It's times like these that make me feel worthless.  Why did I even get up that day?  Why did we go run errands for my mom so that we could have this "party"?  (99 cent store decorations, didn't even dust off the furniture...) Really, I could throw a much better party.  Yet, "This is my new life," as she says.  Don't I get a say in that?!

Perhaps I'm fine with throwing parties, perhaps I really like having people over, but they have to be people that I feel comfortable with and can be myself around.  The hostess finding the most controversial topics to talk about while you are confined to your singular table is not good hostessing.

Perhaps my anger is misdirected.  Perhaps I'm just mad at myself.  Perhaps I'm mad that I don't have a bubbly personality and that I feel awkward in social situations so that that is manifested towards others.  Perhaps I hate myself for that.  Perhaps all I ever wanted was to feel at ease in social situations so that I could make friends, good friends, and be perfectly happy.  Friends that loved me for who I was.  I think I have had friends like that in my life.  Too bad I wasn't strong enough to love myself for who I was and I think I pushed them away.  I think I've had friends like that.  I wonder where they are now.