Love the people who love you back

During the past year, I've been socializing with some other moms in a
play group that met twice a week. We'd walk on Tuesday's and then
have a play date on Friday afternoons. Last June or so, I stopped
going to the play dates because our Summer schedules were filled with
vacations, swimming classes and just enjoying the good weather.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Doug and I attended a holiday party
hosted by one of the moms and I asked her when the play group was
going to get back onto a regular
schedule. She may a furtive look at another mom from the group and
then stumbled through a pretty lame lie that basically confirmed what
I had felt all along; I was not welcome.

I didn't quite understand what she was really saying because I had a
migraine at the time and the medicine made my thinking pretty cloudy,
but Doug saw right through her
explanation. We left a few minutes after this exchange and as we
walked to the car, Doug and I realized what had happened. At first
my feelings were really hurt because I didn't fit into this group.
But then I got mad because I knew that I didn't fit in from the very
beginning and I had tried very hard to fit it, but it didn't work.
The other thing that made me feel especially bad was that these women
didn't ever consider is that maybe I didn't fit in because I was
suffering from Post-Partum depression so badly that it greatly
affected my personality.

Before I attended these outings I was a mess. I would stress about
all the little things and cry over simple things. During our walks,
I would tell them about my tough morning and they really didn't
believe me. I felt like they were just listening to my story long
enough to get to their venting.

I have not contacted any of the moms from the play group since the
holiday party and I don't really think that I will invite myself
because I'm obviously not wanted. Fortunately,
my neighbor, Heather has been a great friend. She and I go swimming
on Tuesday nights and she has me going to her Auto immunity support
group meetings that she started and her family came over to our house
for New Year's Eve and we had a great time. Heather was also the
person who recognized my post-partum symptoms and made me go to the
doctor. I am forever grateful that she did this. She's going to be
a doctor in a few years and already she has helped me.

It's hard to find a morale in this story because it's late and I'm
tired, but maybe the answer is that it's harder to try to make
friends than it is to stumble upon them. Our new neighbors are
really great and they feel like family. I actually know four women
within a couple of blocks whom I could confide in and trust them with
Finnegan. I guess they are my new "playgroup." It's good to be
included.