Family Gatherings

Is it wrong for me to feel just a little bit snubbed?

Yesterday laying poolside with some mutual friends. I am asked a strange question: Are you going to the baby shower?

The Baby Shower.

As in my sister-in-law's baby shower, the one who's having twins in October. The baby shower which was apparently planned and scheduled without my knowledge. The baby shower which I did not receive an invitation to.

Oh, that baby shower.

It ever so briefly crosses my mind that perhaps the invitation has not yet arrived. Of course I am merely blocks from my own apartment, and this virtual neighbor has received her invitation. Inevitably, I realize, "lost in the mail" is not really an option.

So I brace myself, do my best to remain steely, and answer what I mean to be the truth: "I don't know."

Well sort of the truth. It seems to me that it is clear that I am not, in fact, going to The Baby Shower. And I marvel momentarily at the discussions that must have taken place about my attendance, whispers between sister and mother over what to do, the drama of it all. Perhaps they have even asked the husband's opinion, to which he had undoubtedly replied that I should not be invited. Just one more stab in the back. Would he not know how hurt I would be by this rejection?

And what about them? Were they conscious of their exclusion in not inviting me to participate in the planning? Did they imagine I would not want to be a part of this production, for the sister-in-law who stood as maid of honor at my wedding, who bought me cosmos and dinner and advised my about her brother when I first moved to the city? Who I cooked with and did my best to befriend? Did they knowingly exclude me, or just not bother to seek out my advice? Is this just one more check I can add to the column of injustices, the slightest of slights, the cookies and cakes and appetizers that go untouched year after year at the communal holiday feast, the empty feeling of being 'just outside the inner circle.' Have they loved me 'like family'? I can't say. Certainly outwardly they have. In turn they have invited me into their home time and time again, for short and long periods of time, fed me and bestowed gifts upon me. That should be enough perhaps.
But then there were the countless family dinners where I was made the butt of the family jokes, where the underlying current was that a girl from Michigan who teaches school is just not good enough, will never be good enough for their prodigal son. The message that I 'just didn't get it,' the times I was put in a corner, left clinging to a branch, hung out to dry by "my family" and never rescued by my husband. Where, in the fog of drinking too much wine because there is never a bit of useful information I can bring to the table, I am forced to choose: fight or flight.

I have tried both. Neither work. Your dreams will not be supported. Your views will never be respected. What you did to help him, or what you may have sacrificed will be ignored. Because "When this family loves you they tease you," or "You've got to be less sensitive, Katy." When everyone else is good at something, everyone else is given accolades, and it gets so it drives you crazy, and YES I AM SENSITIVE DAMN IT, but I wasn't always that way. Or the biggest hurt of all...that he doesn't protect you. That his family will always be more "his family" than your little family ever will be.

Somewhere along the line I lost my own sense of self-respect. Because when you couldn't value me for what I brought to the table, I began to question myself. It seemed whatever I tried went unnoticed. It seems you began to string the red tape across the door before I could ever step foot across the threshold. Oh I don't think you didn't love me, at times. I know your hugs were genuine; I know you cared in your own way. But my fate was predetermined. I never really had a chance. At least not as me. I couldn't be me, and still be a part of you.

I had wondered what would become of my relationships with these family members. The children I am leaving behind, what would you say when they asked about me? They have known me all their lives. And what about us? Would we be like those girls I see sometimes, dining together, sister and ex sister-in-law who remain friends? We have shared a lot in our times. Good wine. Bad husbands. The fear and the loneliness, the depression. Surely you would understand where I am coming from, surely you can't blame me for choosing my own happiness, can you?

But perhaps not. Because of course in the end you made a different choice. Your lives were sewn together too long ago now, all there is left to do is drink wine and stack up your losses. You took the high road, you might say. You stuck it out, you might think. But does your heart agree with me, even just a little? Does your heart know what you have sacrificed to choose this life? Do you envy me at all? Maybe some day you will tip your glasses to me, you will remember my struggles. They were not so different from your own.