I'm a Universalist

I seem to be in what I am choosing to call a Post Holiday Funk.  A bit of a bleak outlook, a leaning to loneliness and worst-casing mixed with a hint of self-doubt. My working brain reminds me that I have just spent three days home alone with our two small children after 10 days of sharing the parenting gig with my very capable husband. To say nothing of the distance from laundry, morning glory and crayoned carpets. My addled brain is sure that it was only a holiday from the Truth and that in fact, life is inevitably yucky.

Yesterday, in a fit of self-care, I invited over all the neighbourhood moms for coffee and child-mixing. Being an extrovert, people are generally a cure for what ails me most days.  Grown-up, humour-getting, full-sentence using people, to be clear.  Of the eight or so moms on the list, two were free for this last minute hootenhanny and we spent more than two hours just being together while the small people played with the hose and the dirt and the wheeled things and generally entertained each other.  It was so nice.

Except for the part where I kept thinking about the eight that weren't there. Sure, three were working, two had previously arranged playdates,  one declined wanting to spend one of her last newborn-free mornings preparing the house and her own self for her third child, one may or may not still get email at the address I chose and one ... well, I haven't seen her since we got back, so maybe they're away? Certainly, Working Brain understands that they weren't available. Sadly, Addled Brain is pretty sure they were lying.

So of course, being so Wisely Self-Aware, I quickly realized that I think they are lying because there are very few things that would keep me from a coffee invitation with other people - work, rest, not getting the invitation? nope. I would be there because I *so* need these getting-togethers to keep it together. And if I wouldn't miss it, then of course they wouldn't miss it either. Unless they hated me. Hated me more than they hated being disconnected from other mothers of small children.  And that would be a lot of hate.

Perhaps the flaw in this thinking is obvious to you? Because apparently it was about 10 hours un-obvious to me. It is possible, nay, probable, that they are not just like me. That on Wednesday morning, they didn't in fact need coffee and friends as deeply as I did.  Oh and this isn't what I mean.  Hmm, what am I trying to say? That it required almost other-wordly conciousness for me to remember that other people's lives are not in fact, about Me.

Ludicrous.  Just straight up ludicrous. I am not sure what the cure is for this particular disability, but I'll be spending some time thinking about it. Because I'm pretty sure I'd be a tiny bit less bleak if I could remember this a bit more quickly next time.