I tried my best to put on a brave face, not be too scary in front of my kids. Once I had a
I was helping Joshua find his shoes in the shoe bin, digging among dozens of similarly hued super-hero decorated rubber lumps (an impossible task at the best of times) when a dad came in with his son and a stack of little white envelopes. I presumed they were party invitations, and the dad began to sort them out into the children's individual mail boxes. As I continued my quest to find Joshua's shoes (I had found one Batman shoe at this point) I slowly began to realize that the stack of envelopes wasn't very thick. Some mail boxes were being skipped. And Joshua's was among them.
My heart dropped. It was so unexpected. I was gearing up to snatch the envelope from his little mail box and show him and say "Joshua! You've got mail, buddy!" and then watch his little face as he struggled to rip open the envelope to reveal a party invite inside. I was going to RSVP on the spot and write it into our family calendar later. It would be a little highpoint in our day. Joshua LOVES parties.
But, this was not to be. Soon the dad was standing back, helping his son put on his shoes (more easily found than Joshua's, apparently) and waiting for the doors of the school to be opened and for the teachers to begin welcoming the children. I bit my lip and found Joshua's other shoe, helped him put them on and stood back to wait as well. Honestly? I was fighting back tears.
Now yes I realize that EVERYONE cannot be invited to EVERYTHING. I know. I get it. But the culture at our preschool is that typically you invite everyone from your particular "class". One typically invites all the kids from Tuesday afternoons to your party. Or all the kids from the days you attend, so Joshua would invite all of the children from Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. That way, if the kids are talking about the party before or after, it's a party ALL of the children are invited to, not just a select few. If only a few kids are able to be invited to a party for some reason or other, then the invitations are usually done more discreetly, by email or quiet parking-lot invitations. Most parents make it a point to be sneaky if every child is not included. Joshua had a little pre-Christmas party at the house and we had invited only four children, to keep things small and fun. I did not flaunt this in front of the other children! No! I sent little emails inviting a few kids and kept it on the down-low. We were cool about it. I took photos and Facebooked about it. I sent the parents a photo montage of their child's activities from the party. It was awesome.
As I said goodbye to Joshua and led Claire out of the building I began to feel so sad, so heartbroken on his behalf. I knew full well that Joshua would probably never realize what was happening. That he'd probably never put 2 and 2 together and figure out that he was among the non-invited. But still for me this was a bitter pill to swallow; it was the first time Joshua had been excluded by one of his friends! How DARE the parents do this to my child? My child who had invited THEIR child to HIS parties (including his exclusive pre-Christmas party)!
I know that I was projecting my past rejections onto the situation. That all in all it's probably a blessing we weren't invited. Truth be told kid parties are a pain. They take up an entire Saturday. You've got to buy a present, then forget to wrap it until you're nearly out the door, and oh crap we forgot a card quick let's make one! It's a hassle. But for me at that moment in that day, it wasn't Joshua who was being left out... it was ME being rejected.
I was suddenly thrown back into Grade 8. None of the cool kids invited me to their parties. No boys asked me "out" on a "date". The girls who had agreed to be on my lunchtime volleyball team had suddenly shut me out and I had been replaced all too easily. The friend who had promised to meet me at the mall went there with someone else instead. My brother was too cool to be my friend anymore. My size 38 jeans were tight and my glasses smudged. I was unwanted. Unpopular. Left behind. Left out. Alone.
So yes. I was making the matter worse and bigger in my head than it actually was. I knew this. It's something I do quite frequently, after all.
But I also knew that it was the beginning of little social struggles and slights that Joshua would encounter in his life. And I HATED it. I hated that it had to begin at all. That he would have to feel rejection and the sting of being left out. His heart would be broken over and over again. He will get into a fight with his best friend and cry. He will ask a girl to the dance and she will say no. He will be uninvited to parties and stuck home with us and will be very very mad about the whole situation. He will think the world is a terrible and awful place. Here it is - the beginning of a lifetime of hurt had begun, right in front of my eyes. Beginning with a father's stack of little white envelopes.
I had never come so close to punching a grown man in the face before in all my life. If he hadn't been carrying his infant I may have at least tripped him.
How did we get here? I mean one minute he was born, and EVERYONE loved him. Everyone wanted to hold him and change his diaper and rock him. Everyone wanted to feed him and burp him and play with him. And now he's being EXCLUDED from stuff? The whole idea makes my head spin. Not to mention the fact that he's the coolest and funniest kid in town and really we should be charging people for Joshua to make an appearance at their lame parties.
But I suppose there are lessons to be learned here. I will grudgingly admit that. I know my own struggles in high school taught me a lot. It allowed me to observe, from a distance, how people behave. How one minute someone can be your best friend, that is until a better offer comes along. How fickle girls can be, and how offhand boys can be. How that it can be okay to be left out, and that being alone isn't all that bad. I learned how to reinvent myself. To overcome personal struggles and be my own girl. To take lightly the popularity I found years later when my jeans were smaller and my smudgey glasses had been replaced by contact lenses. It did give me valuable perspective. And a sense of humor about life.
Hopefully I can use that experience to help Joshua as he grows, too. Though I know nothing can save him from feeling the pain of heartbreak and loneliness, perhaps I can sympathize with him and tell him funny stories of when I was left out, too. Hopefully his sense of self and humor will carry him through those situations with laughter instead of tears. Hopefully he will be better at this whole concept of "growing up" than I ever was, or will be.
As I drove away from preschool with silly tears on my cheeks I took a look in my rearview mirror and took in the sight of my beautiful daughter, colouring in the backseat as we drove. Happy, smiling, content. I counted the months in my head that I have with her until she, too, will start preschool and at the same time develop her own tiny social sphere complete with joy, friends, parties.
The lump in my throat stayed all day.
-TDW
No comments:
Post a Comment