Out of sorts

Feeling out of sorts.

This weekend should have been fun – on Saturday I had a girly day at home with my daughter, doing a dance exercise dvd together, then watching a teen movie while I knitted the Log cabin socks. On Sunday, I had arranged to meet two friends from my schooldays for lunch. We have met up once before a few months ago and it was fun. But yesterday I blew it.

I was half an hour late – I got distracted looking at the party frocks in Asda while buying a little gift (“Lady Grey” tea) for the hostess. I don’t get out much on my own (without children), so a few minutes alone in a supermarket clothes department is almost as good as an hour in Harvey Nicks. But I was late. The hostess actually RANG me on my mobile to check I was coming (at 1.03pm when I was outside her front door!) – and that made me feel so uneasy. So when I got in there and realised they had been talking about me, it just got worse and worse. I felt over dressed (they weren’t to know I had spilt hair straightener on my denim skirt and my only pair of jeans were in the wash) and thin (they are both overweight while I verge on the opposite) but most of all I felt WEIRD.

I forget that most people don’t leave their hometown at 17 to go to University and only return 20-something years later to live with their First Love. They don’t bring their two mixed-race children to live in rural Scotland. They don’t grow their own vegetables or knit their own socks or stop to look at the cloudscapes. They don’t immerse themselves in living a passionate life, full of creativity and love.

And I know that every word I write sounds defensive and probably snobbish, but it is because they hurt me. I felt like I was only there to provide some gossip material. They wanted to know what it was like to be as “weird” as me. And I don’t feel weird at all! I don’t want to shop at Marks and Spencer’s, or spend my evenings watching games shows on TV, or buying “the right trainers” for my daughter’s Christmas! What is the point in “treading the path most followed”? If I had produced my knitting from my bag, I think they would have laughed outright, and it wouldn’t have been inclusive laughter.

They EXCLUDED me. That’s what happened.
And I don’t think they knew what they were doing. They registered my silences and they judged me.

At the head of my blog, I mention my return from exile. But really I am not being allowed “in”. I know now why I left at 17. And I know why I returned. My First Love appreciates me and the things that are important to me, and only with him do I feel I have permission to relax and show my feelings and speak my mind and BE ME. There are so few like-minded people in this world. And it’s only at home and on the blogs that I find them! And mostly that feels fine. But right now I am feeling quite lonely.

Went to the HipKnits sale this morning and bought two skeins of bargain sock cashmere. And I regret to say I won’t be using it to make gifts for my “friends”.