The Invitations that never came

 So we are about 20 days after by birthday and I'm still all pruney in the hurt.  So I took some deep breaths and tried to work my mind through the hurt.  I need to find the base otherwise I'll stay stuck in the moment.  

A couple of days ago, a former student and now Facebook friend posted a graphic about getting okay with the invitation that never come and understanding that you were never part of their plans.  It resonated with me immediately.  This whole birthday thing really reminds me that these friends of mine aren't actually my friends but somewhat close acquaintances that I forgot were acquaintances.  I have to remember that not everyone who calls you a friend actually means it.

So this is not a new lesson.  Yesterday, I was almost on the other side of the hurt and then I saw a fucking video.  Oh, so you are back in town.  Then a post, oh so you are making big plans.  To her credit, the other one is keeping her plans secret as they seem to involve a secret so at least I don't have to see it yet.  Anyways, my feels got all hurt again.  So that leads to this morning; why am I still so in this hurt?  Why can't I let go of the rope that is clearly cutting my hands?

The NPR station started going in and out, which I hate, so I turned on my Bluetooth and basically played playlist roulette.  I couldn't remember what I had been listening to the last time I was listening to Spotify so it could be anything.  This is of course when the universe steps in: Cycles by Jonathan McReynolds featuring DOE.  If you don't know the song, it is a Christian song reminding us we have to break the bad cycles in our life.  We continue to repeat them unless we acknowledge them.  

Okay universe, let's turn inward and really dig.  What is bothering me?  Seriously, it's not like this is the first time "friends" have been asshats to me.  What is my issue?  My 44th birthday, really?!  A little deep breathing and boom: being in elementary school and not being invited to birthday parties but hearing all about how much fun they had the previous weekend.  Concerts my college "friends" would go to and tell me about it afterward.  The trips my work "friends" would go on during the summer and I would get to hear about later.  The invitations that never came.  

It is less that I'm not invited but that I'm forgotten or really my feelings disregarded. I understand why I didn't get invited to the parties, my parents treated us like my brothers and I were triples so you weren't just inviting me, you were inviting the whole family.  I get it, I didn't know the band or have the money for the concert and the car was full.  We aren't trip-taking friends just folks that work together.  So I do understand I don't count in those situations; why consider my feelings?  I'm not a consideration at all.  That doesn't mean it didn't hurt my feelings or that it wasn't until that moment that I hadn't realized I didn't have friends.  

So the hurt isn't 44-year-old Martha but 8-year-old Martha and 20-year-old Martha and 30-year-old Martha.  I keep letting myself get hurt and the worst part is I court it!  One of these "friends" once told me that he was going to join me at a drag show but then decided I wasn't the drive or effort so he didn't bother.  I still speak to this person.  Y'all why am I allowing myself to be hurt by someone who so obviously do not care about me?  He has his head so far up his own ass that this isn't a special statement about forgetting me, it is just who he is.  The one "friend" I have known the longest has always dropped me faster than fast whenever she gets a "better" offer.  The newest of these "friends" is just a workout partner.  I have to remember that she will never be more than that so why am I placing any blame at her feet?  The sharing ends at the end of the run, period.  When I had that straight in my mind, everything was cool.

So I am feeling better as I write this.  Finding the root of the hurt and finally putting everyone in their place in my life is what I needed to do back on May 28th.  I wasted a lot of energy on being hurt.  How do I fix this nasty pattern?  That is a much longer project and currently, I have no plan.  The easy flippant answer is to say I'll never speak to those people again and find actual friends but I know that this is a strong life pattern rooted deep inside of me.  I'll just do it all over again and again.  Pattern breaking is so much hard work but I know I'm worth my effort so step one: recognize the pattern.  Step two, I'm not sure yet.

Fucking Birthdays and celebrations or lack thereof

 It is approximately 15 days since my 44th birthday.  Not a single one of my "friends" has mentioned anything about maybe going to dinner to celebrate or a special non-Sunday run (we have a set Sunday 5K), or hell just a quick coffee  Nothing.  I got 2 text messages and 2 facebook birthday wall messages.  Now I got more than that but I'm thinking of the people that I make and effort to see each week.  The ones that when some shit goes down I hear about it.

I admit, I'm salty about it though less salty after 14 days.  My saltiness started a bit before my birthday and really it started as hurt.  Just geniunly upset about the lack of friends in my life that share their joy with me.  I get to always hear their bad stuff.  I understand I am a magnet for sadness.  This is something that is a recurring theme in my life.  Total strangers find me lay their burders down on me and walk off.  

However, in the last couple of months, all of these "friends" of mine have been posting their fun with their actual friends after I had spend hours cleaning them up.  I listen to their sadness and then suddenly they are out partying with other people.  I'm tired of being used as a dumping ground for their sadness while being excluded from their joy. 

I get the bad shit and everyone else gets the good shit.  I listen to you crying but everyone else gets your laughter.  You will literally plan someone else's birthday party infront of me, while telling me you would never take me out to dinner because you don't go out and do birthday stuff.  Like, why do I speak to these people?  We have tentative plans for my birthday and then you dissappear on a girls' trip without saying anything like plans with me for my birthday aren't shit.  I don't matter to you so why am I constantly dropping other people who want to be my friends for these shitheads?

Basically I'm not.  I haven't spoken to any of them since the run immediately after my birthday where one planned someone else's birthday party.  None of them showed up for my daughter's 1st superfight.  I had a co-worked from Wiley show up.  Another co-worker/friend from Wiley sent a message that they couldn't make it because they had another obligation and they were sorry.  These "friends" of mine all pretended like nothing was going on.  No, sorry I can't make it.  No, I'm out of town but.  Nothing.  

I'm working through the hurt and avoiding basically everyone because I know when I'm hurt I get toxic on everyone.  I am challenging myself to cultivate other friendships.  Like, I have people who are out of town who have sent money to my child for training, bought raffle ticktets, have come out to see her fight at an out of town event but the 3 people I though were like besties can't be bother.  

I deserve to be celebrated.  I deserve to the right to turn down a party.  I actually have an acquaintance ask if she needed to throw me a party because it's not like I have been quite about this bothering me.  I asked her not to because I knew nobody would show up.  Like, how sad is it when you know that the people you call best friends would not bother to show to a party that all they had to do was show up to?  While they fucking go to everyone else's fucking parties!  Like change all of their plans to party with people they have told you aren't as good as friend as I am.  

Since it is more than one person, I know it's me.  I'm the problem; it's me.  So I'm just not speaking to anyone.  I got a lot more miles to run before I'm fit to be around people again.  I will eventually speak to those people again because I do actually love them; they just hurt me deeply and for now I just can't.

18 years and counting

So today, DH and I are celebrating 18 years of being a couple.  We met in high school health class.  The usually boy meets girl.  They become friends and then girl asks boy out and the rest is history.

It has been an amazing adventure with DH.  I could have never predicted our lives today.  When we met all of those years ago we just clicked but honestly we were just friends.  We could just chill and talk.  We went to different colleges several hours apart and seemingly forgot to break-up.  Come December we'll celebrated 12 years of marriage.  Life just has a way of working itself out.

When DH and I first started dating, we would talk about the future in fun not going to be married to you terms.  Who expects to marry their high school sweetheart especially when you are going away to different colleges? We've all heard those stories of long-distance love that grows apart.  We were under no illusion that we would end up together.  DH would talk about naming his sons Mister and Master.  I would laugh at him and tell him he would be lucky to find a woman who would agree to that.  He knows there will be no naming of a son Mister nor Master.  I wanted to be a teacher, plain and simple.  I wanted four kids, maybe five.

So here we are 18 years later.  There is only one child in our lives.  Somedays I wonder why we fought and worked so hard to get a child and then she'll say the right thing and it breaks my heart that she is still an only child.  I would have never pictured being 9 months from turning 35 and with only one child.  I do know that God's timing is perfect.  If I had tried to plan my life it would have been a total mess.  God is in control and while there are days, I know that there is no place else I want to be.  I know to DH the number of children we have does not matter.  One or five as long as we are a happy and together family our size is the least of our concerns.

Having always dreamed of a large family of my own, I have to admit there are days I lose hope.  With the magical ending age of fertility just around the corner, I have to acknowledge that I'm not super cool with the idea of being pregnant after the age of 35.  If we have struggle so much now then surely that door will shut completely then.  I know its not true.  I know it is all in my head and that my being on my period right now, right at the I will be 35+ when I have another baby is just weighting on me.  Age is nothing but a number right?  Still it feels important to say that this was my last chance to be under 35 and have another baby.  Well there is not point crying over an unfertilized egg.  God has a plan and I must just accept and understand that I might not understand the plan for a while.

Today we celebrate 18 years together.  Through thick and thin, richer and poorer, sickness and health, wheat-filled and wheat-free, two dogs to a family with only one and one beautiful blessing of a daughter, I have to say that I would be stupid to question God's timing now.