Groups

There is a picture going viral on social media right now.  It's of a group of 20- something girls.  Three in the front row, recently engaged, are showing off their new rings, and the girls standing around them are pointing to said bling admiringly and cheerfully... except one.  One girl is holding a mock- gun to her temple.

It's hilarious, I think.  And it got me thinking about groups.

For most of my early to mid- twenties I was part of the married group.  I guess I never thought of my status as anything special, or even as a grouping.  But it was a group: not necessarily a good one or a bad one.  Just a group of people who were partnered up-- supposedly for life.

When I got separated and subsequently divorced, the pang of the grouping started to hit slowly.  At first, I was relieved-- and at times elated-- to be in "group: single."  It was the promise of a new opportunity to "find myself" (blech, I hate when people say that), and there was a curious joy I felt in having it thrust upon me that I would take care of myself completely.  I had many single friends, but almost all my friends from college were married and most were having babies.  I remember going to lunch in Mystic, CT one Sunday-- I think in 2008-- and one friend brought her newborn, while three of the others bore their pregnant bellies in the group photo we took.  I stood on the end, happy to be there, but feeling the division more sharply than ever.  I was the only one drinking a Mimosa at that brunch, and the symbolism was poignant.

It wasn't ever that I couldn't be happy for friends who had moved on to different stages of life way faster than I had.  Yes, I was overjoyed for the births of their kids.  But at the same time, I knew I wanted a family, and I also knew the prospect was not a guarantee for me.  It was daunting, and so, as much as this makes me sound like a terrible person, there were times I didn't always love being around my friends who were in "group: family life."   Maybe I am weak and selfish, but I was not only bored by the conversations around pack- n- plays-- I was terrified of these discussions, and even resented them.  I felt pitiable-- which may have been all in my head-- but my social constructs to that point had made me feel that way.  "They must think I am really pathetic," I would wonder.

Looking back, there are events I avoided altogether because of the pain they brought: a friend's wedding (not a best friend, but a friend) a month after finding out about my ex's new squeeze; a couple of birthday parties.  I couldn't bear to be around the things that were now gone.  My mom told me about how she had to avoid a baptism after she had a bad miscarriage, because it was too much to handle.  She said in time she was fine with going to baptisms, but that's probably because she DID by then have babies of her own.  And if I am being 100 percent honest here, I didn't feel fully confident around "group: family life" until I was there myself.

It doesn't mean I avoided people like a hermit, or that I refused to honor my congrats and well- wishes for people.  I am not THAT evil.  But I migrated toward people who were in my boat, and I wanted to spend most of my time with people who "got me" and what I was going through.

Over time, I have seen that the groupings are stupid, but you can't avoid feeling them.  I think the girl in the viral picture has had enough of "group: engaged" and while she isn't hating the idea that these friends are hitched, she can't help but feel sharply the fact that she isn't.

Becoming part of "group: parent" means I do look when people post parenting questions on Facebook, when before I would have scrolled past ever- so- rapidly.  Stories about suffering babies and kids hit me way more crushingly than before.  And I can chat about sippy cups and playmats as much as the next guy.  I am not sickened by these conversations over lunch anymore.

But I get it that some people are.  Society has sort of created these groups, and then we can't stop reinforcing them in our own minds.  When I'm around my single friends, they are always so good to ask about Mabel and J, but I try hard not to chat about family stuff the whole time.  I think my friends in "group: single" have lives just as cool as mine, only in different ways.  And most of them are actually way cooler.  I feel the grouping in that I can't make it to most things they do on weekends, but, in some ways, I hate that I have moved groups.  I try, therefore, to blur the lines.  I don't want to be thought of only as wife and mother; for several years, I was someone totally different, and I came to like her.  I don't want to let her go, and I am so, so grateful for the time I got to have being her.

A lot of people won't admit to the grouping they feel; and while I don't want to, I have to.  Pigeon- holing has always annoyed me, but I wasn't born yesterday.  I get the social and societal layerings and groupings that exist around us at all ages, but especially as young adults.  And so to the girl in the pic, you rock that mock- gun at the temple.  It's how you feel-- it's where you are.  I've got you.