Mom Confessions: Rejection Still Hurts

At the beginning of the year, I had a meltdown and wrote about how I had been feeling rejected. To sum up a really long post, my neighbors and I had planned to do a progressive dinner party over New Years, and no one showed up at my house, or invited me to theirs. I spent the whole day preparing appetizers and cleaning the house so naturally I was really hurt. I did my best to be an adult as I tried to pretend I wasn't hurting, but they could see through me. Clearly I'm not good at hiding my feelings...that's not always a bad thing, right?

One of them realized something was up when I waved "hello" instead of saying it. Eventually I caved in and told her I was really hurt by their actions and really just needed some time to "recover" from that. She then told the other neighbor, who then confronted me about it. Talking about my feelings is so hard! I felt so vulnerable! They all apologized for making me feel rejected as they didn't intentionally leave me out, because they aren't "those kind of people" and I should know that. Cue the eye rolls....

Fast forward to my birthday, which I don't celebrate for a reason. It landed on a Thursday this year. The previous Friday, we ran into our neighbors while out eating and later went to their house afterwards for a while where we made a plan for the ladies together the next weekend. A few days later Perry's mom took us out to dinner on Tuesday, and then my family took us to dinner on Wednesday. My gut couldn't handle more restaurant food otherwise Perry probably would have taken me out to dinner for my birthday too. But I had a nice birthday none the less. (He gave me a foot massage and my feet staaank!) I was stupidly getting excited to for the weekend ahead as I managed to have a couple people cover my shift at work so I could have Saturday night off to celebrate my birthday with "friends." 

Our first plans of the ladies getting together on Friday night fizzled out as everyone ended up really tired so Perry and I found ourselves playing Dominos by ourselves until midnight. The following afternoon the ladies and I group texted about the night. My husband was invited to play poker with the husbands while the wives got together. After some close friends made dinner for us, I let the group know they could come over whenever. Turns out two of the three ladies joined in for poker, and the other spent the night watching hockey on tv. She eventually showed up around 10:30p, but again, I was feeling rejected again. I took the night off work and was stood up again. I'm always asked why I don't celebrate my birthday. This is why. I can't handle the disappointment. I've had so many crappy birthdays. 

At this point I don't want to even think about getting together with them again. I'm not going to put myself in that situation again. I'm also at the point where I want to delete my Facebook account because I really just don't like seeing pictures of the ladies all hanging out together when I didn't get an invite. If my cake page wasn't attached to it, I'd probably be done with it by now. I'm always brought back to the same question: What am I doing wrong to not be included? I just don't understand. I think I'm a pretty likable person.