Over the past few months I have witnessed others and personally experienced the emotional turmoil uninvited/forgotten can feel like. This was something I was all to familiar with when I was younger and assumed it would change as a transitioned into other stages of life. What I have found is now that I am older I'm to old for a certain age group, I'm still too young for another age group, I am now married which means I don't fit into the singles group, I have a child so I don't fit into the without child group, I have a toddler so I have yet to fit into certain mom groups, I am involved in this activity or volunteer on that night so I don't belong to the right small groups, and the list goes on. Here is the reality though, I don't fit into any group because I wasn't born to fit in. Although it is still uncomfortable and still hurts, the concept hadn't occurred to me until I took a break from social media to truly focus on myself, heal from the recent hurts, and repair some of the broken that I realized this.
The hurt wont go away, the lack of invitations wont cease, the fake friends still wont show up, the real friends will still be dealing with their own crazy chaos and their own struggles in life, and the "community" that is so heavily preached upon will still be so self and circular involved they wont see you standing outside the circle. All that to say it's ok though, because you are left with two choices. You can shut down or show up. Which will you choose? The reality is you and I have been on both sides of the nasty uninvited saga. We have accidentally not invited someone to an event or gathering. We have not done the best job of reaching out to our friends or acquaintances, and we have at some point at least once in our lives failed to show up for someone when they really needed it. The most popular and famous of the famous have at one point or another felt the hurt of being left out or alone too.
So the question is how do we stop it? We don't remove ourselves from the outside world and wall ourselves up. Instead we submerge ourselves into others. We choose to show up even when that requires more energy than we feel we can muster. We dig in and reach out to others. We create the invitations and hope to not forget anyone! We choose to humble ourselves to put our hurts, our differences, and our pasts aside in order to optimize the opportunity. In life there are no easy ways out, but merely optimization and wisdom.
The next time you feel you didn't fit in or weren't invited I encourage you to look at the picture on instagram, the tagged people on facebook, the hashtag on twitter and then pick up the phone and call those not included in the ladies group post, the couples group post, the church group post, the mom group post, the friend group post, the whatever group or event it may be and create one in that moment. Again why would you want to fit in, when you were born to stand out (Dr. Seuss)?
