Well, this is difficult to write. The past couple of weeks have been incredibly eye-opening.
I sit here pretty much close to tears, and whilst I admit I may not be entirely sober, the old adage of things coming to light clearly whence otherwise they might be blurry comes to mind.
My oldest group of girlfriends are meeting up again on Monday. Without me. I was not invited. The girl who is organising it is the girl I speak of here, the one who is going to California in January for gender selective IVF. The gathering has been organised through Facebook messenger, which I have bemoaned of in the past. I cannot get on Facebook at work (due to the nature of my employment it is a banned site) and I refuse to install FB messenger on my phone due to all the various connotations of what is involved and what privacy you give up during the download. Therefore I have frequently said to my friends that, whilst they may organise things through FB, it is always best to text me as well. And at every other meet up this has been done. Right up to the meet up in October when I finally opened up to said friend and admitted that I couldn't be around her at this current moment in time. Up until I admitted that to her I had been texted about any meet up despite a FB conversation running parallel.
For this December meet up I was not included in the messages. No one texted me to let me know it was happening. I found out when and where due to second hand conversations with other friends. The reason being banded about for me not going is that I refuse to participate in FB messenger conversations (bollocks, this has been the case for years and previously they have just texted me instead) or that I 'cannot cope' with the large en masse group meet ups when they talk about nothing but children (again, bollocks. This may have been the case last year when things were more raw but I have got a lot better this year and made at least one of said group meet ups. Not the issue it was anymore). It irks like you wouldn't believe that these things are being said behind my back. These assumptions that are not true, that not one of them has the balls to actually confront me about and ask if that is indeed that case.
The one and only reason that I have not been invited to this particular meet up is that the person organising it knows I do not want to be around her. No. Other. Reason. And not only that, the organiser has not admitted to the group why. Which is, I imagine, why the other reasons I outlined above are being banded about. There is one and one reason only why I do not want to go - her. And as she is organising it she cannot admit to that. If someone asks why I am not there it is clearly easier for her to make up an excuse rather than to say 'she doesn't want to be around me at the moment'.
Now, I feel at this point I should admit something to you dear reader. I am not exactly sober. I have had a particularly rubbish week at work. That has exacerbated my feelings. Does that mean that the basis in which my feelings lie are rubbish? No. Absolutely not. Does that mean I may well have not picked the best words and might have overreacted slightly to current events? Yes, that is entirely likely. However, in the same breath that does not make my feelings worthless. It does not make the rawness and pain in my heart any less real. That these girls, who I have known for twenty years now, who I opened my heart up to earlier this year and let them know exactly what we were going through, I feel I am drifting from. I feel they no longer understand where I am coming from. Where I am.
Is this self imposed? Is that the old-fashioned self-fulfilling prophecy? That I am clearly not worthy of good things. That I don't deserve anything that I'd actually like to have. That someone somewhere has decided that I shouldn't have a family, that I shouldn't have what most people hold dear. That I am destined to be alone (which is horseshite, I have a wonderful family and the most absolutely truly amazing husband) and that this suffering is actually enjoyable.Therefore I destroy these things, therefore I don't have them, therefore I was not worthy of them in the first place. The old vicious circle. Is this wallowing in self pity? Not entirely. Is this raising the ghosts of a very very troubled teenage years? More than likely.
It may not also help that I have hardly seen hubby this week. With various Christmas do's and catch ups with friends, and his shifts, I last saw him properly on Tuesday evening and (aside from possibly a brief hug tomorrow morning if he gets home in time) I won't see him properly now until Sunday lunchtime. He fixes me. He knows what to do, what to say, and he always makes things better. I feel the timing of these feelings inside me and his current shift patten could not have been worse.
Maybe I am better off alone. I don't wish to sound as if I'm being self-absorbed, really I don't, but there has always been - and quite possible still is - a self destructive streak within me. Do I want to destroy these friendships as I believe I'm better off without? Just because they don't understand what I'm going through I should cut them loose? I don't know. There are members of the group who I truly love and have been absolutely wonderful friends through the darkest hours of the past year or two. But the arrangement of this meet up has brought things into sharp focus. It has left a very bitter taste in my mouth.
I hope to get past it. I hope to go back to how things were. Even, eventually, with my friend who is off to sunnier climes for dubious reasons in January. On one hand I am forever the optimist, that things will work out and we'll all be friends again. On the other hand I feel so alone that I want nothing to do with any of them. Oh the contradictions I live with. Plus ca change.
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