Uninvited

   I was the girl who waited by the mailbox for the invitation that would never come.

    I always knew about parties beforehand. Always. Some people were kinder than others, and tried to be discreet when they invited everyone in the room except me to their party, but others weren't as tactful. Yet somehow, I always knew when a party was about to occur, and would wait--longing, hoping--for the nonexistent invitation.

   Even as young as first grade, I can remember the girls at my homeschool co-op giggling about somebody's birthday slumber party that they were all going to. Someone might lean over and say, "So, Andrea...are you going to so-and-so's birthday party?" And I would shake my head quickly, like it didn't really matter. Or say, "What party?" even though I was fully aware there was going to be one. Then the askers would shrug or say, "That's too bad..." and I would say something along the lines of, "But it's all right. I don't care!"

   ...but, deep down in my six-year-old heart--I did.

   In between the ages of eight and ten, it seemed to hit the worst. At church on Wednesday nights, there were a myriad of invitations constantly being passed out and around--somehow falling into everyone's hands but my own. Some girls were more sensitive than others and handed out invitations quitely (it didn't matter though--the invitees soon were chirping cheerfully about the party, unware that some people weren't supposed to know about it); others might brazenly give invitations out right in front of me.

   They might not have been trying to be rude, perhaps they were just young and naive about basic protocol--still, when I had birthday parties, I mailed all my invitations and then kept mum about the entire event, never breathing a word to anyone in a public place.

   Once, I was one of three girls not invited to this certain girl's birthday party at church. We--the uninvited trio--sat together and discussed possible reasons for not having received an invitation. Finally, using the brilliance of her eight-year-old philosophies, one of the girls announced, "We must not be cool enough!" We all nodded conspiratorially and swung our legs back and forth nervously.

   To be not cool enough in third grade was a huge blow, but at least we were all together in our misery. Until the following Sunday...when the other two girls waved around their newfound invitations excitedly. It was as if a cloud had been lifted from their heads--they had been accepted--their popularity and likeability had been confirmed. And suddenly, the only one with the not cool enough status was...me.

   Then there was that wonderful season of my life, perhaps between the ages of eleven and fifteen, where you were either my good close friend, or you weren't. Parties were so much simpler then--everyone I was friends with never excluded me, because if I was their friend, I was close enough to them to always be invited.

   But the cycles of life kept changing directions, and the lines between close friends and not-friends were blurred and up popped scads and scads of new people in another group I shall, for the sake of argument, call 'casual friends'. They were the ones you might hug and say, "Hi!" to, and occasionally engage in small talk, but never would really be familiar enough to be bosom buddies.

   And that's when the invitation trouble popped up once again, I realized, as I spent the last several weeks waiting by the mailbox (okay, so I wasn't exactly camped out there, but you get what I'm saying...) for invitations to graduation parties (of all things! I've come along way since I've waited for invitation to little girl's princess themed birthday parties) that would never come.

   Suddenly, I had a feeling of nostalgia--hadn't I been a mailbox watcher ten years ago, too? Was I still not cool enough?

   Some things never change.