The Unbearable Frustration and Anxiety of Being

I am not OK, some days. Some days the normal vagaries of life wear me down to pointlessness. Some days this is more than just the normal weariness that accompanies caring for an infant.

It is the little things. The attempts to reach out that seem to backfire. The moments that I step out of my comfort zone that go awry. Some days I feel that no matter how much I try, I will always remained isolated. That Baby Alien will grow up to deal with a weird, sad, socially maladjusted mama whom he is embarrassed to call his mother.

My interpretive skills have gone to total shit. I seem to have lost any ability to navigate social settings with anything resembling grace, and I was never all that good at reading people to begin with.

I went to a bridal shower a few weeks ago. Part of stepping out (I hate showers) of my comfort zone. I bought a dress from Ann Taylor. I dug out the pretty silver shoes I wore to my brother's wedding. I put on the pretty Baccarat crystal necklace J purchased for me as a gift on our trip to Paris. I ruined two pairs of pantyhose before leaving the house. I tucked a bottle of wine into the gift bag, to go along with the corkscrew set off the bride and groom's registry. How bad could it be? I knew the groom - he was the brother of a close childhood friend. I knew the groom's mother (like a second mother to me), his sister, his two sisters-in-law, his aunts, his cousins. I knew some of his friends and the bride - J and I had socialized with him, her and their friends enough to be excited over their upcoming wedding.

It was awful. Not the kind of awful that you walk into right away, but the type of clusterfuck that starts out innocuously and slowly builds momentum until you hit a point where you wonder why you bothered to buy the pretty Ann Taylor dress and dig out the silver sandals that really don't fit your feet properly. The wild desire that you entertained days earlier to get out of the house and do anything gives way to frantic plots to escape.

The groom's mother greeted me warmly and made another place at the already crowded table for me to sit, with the rest of her family. Demanded to see baby pictures of Baby Alien. Passed around the iPod containing cute photos of baby. With the exception of one aunt (1), all cooed over photos and caught me up to speed on small town gossip while the aunt changed the subject to her children whenever anyone at the table asked me a question about Baby Alien.

The three, KN, KB and H, sat in a fog of tension so thick it was visible. Cut out of the shower planning by the bride's sister and multitude of friends while still expected to front the money to pay for the party, they plotted ways to avenge themselves on the other bridesmaids and spent the bulk of the shower tracking gifts and cleaning up wrapping paper with politely bitter smiles. In a classic demonstration of social ineptness, I missed the cues that the wanted my assistance in exacting said revenge by declining to put the tickets in the baskets. (2)

And so the shower progressed, with angry bridesmaids on one side, a politely hostile aunt on another and a disinterested waitstaff on the third, as I was unable to get a drink or refill of water. The guests grew restless and hungry (but not thirsty, as I appeared to be the only person in the room forced to ration her beverage), with nary a roll or leaf of lettuce to nibble on an hour into the party. Many guests, desperately downed the elaborate wedding cake cookie placed at each table as a party favor. One table managed to score several six packs of Miller Lite and were merrily drinking their way through bottle after bottle.

Desperate for some distraction from the lack of food, the angry sisters took it upon themselves to begin drawing tickets for the baskets. Service of the meal was rushed as the bride needed to begin opening gifts in short order if the party was going to end at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as originally planned.

The gifts included the traditional mix of tacky lingerie and other "martial aids" that are so de rigor at bridal showers in these parts. It ended with the groom appearing with a large bouquet of flowers and the groom's mother asking me if I had eaten the fish, as one of the guests had become ill shortly after finishing her meal.

While on my way out, I stopped in the restroom to change my clothes and heard the aforementioned sick guest in the next stall. It was not the fish that had bought her low. It was the several bottles of Miller Lite.

Weeks later, this should just be a funny story. But it is not. Instead all the subtext from that day has been tinged ugly. This past weekend my brother told us that S and H are hosting a bonfire, to which J and I were not invited. He did not invite us because his wife, H, did not want me there.

Rationally, I understand that the bridal shower had nothing to do with the bonfire. H has never warmed to me and this is not the first time we have been excluded from plans that include my brother and his wife.

But it stung. It stung me, who has tried so hard over the years to get along with H, a person who I genuinely like. It hurts to see J, who counts S as one of his closest friends and chose S to be the best man at our wedding, who socialized with S and my brother before he met me, excluded and to know that I am the reason.

Now the comment that one of the sisters made before I left the shower, about how dressed up I was, seems catty rather than a humorous observation. And my efforts to get out in the world seem foolish, useless and pointless.

And worse of all, I am afraid I am turning into someone J is ashamed of.

(1) I was unsurprised. Several years ago I took a beautiful candid photograph (really, it was a great photo) of her youngest daughter playing during a family party and offered up a copy for her album. She complained that I made her daughter look too old and has apparently entertained an active dislike of me from that day forward.

(2) I am routinely astounded by how quickly moments like the above can propel me back to high school, when I was painted as scolding, moralistic tattle-telling goody-two-shoes merely because I was disinterested in participating in any of the dumb juvenile delinquency of my classmates. And I never told on anyone, ever. I got that, much undeserved reputation when I inadvertently revealed to a male upperclassman that the girl he was dating had lied about her age. I shall never forget the upbraiding I received from one of the cheerleaders, nor the threat that she would "make my life hell" if he broke up with the girl. As my high school life was sheer misery, I'm not sure what she could have done to it any worse because it was that bad. As for the sisters - if they had spelled out for me what they wanted I would have happily volunteered.