More shower fun.

My SIL (the planner of the event) is panicking because she placed regrets only on the invites and no one has sent regrets and since she doubts that everyone I have invited from out of state will attend (I agree) she doesn't know how much stuff to get. It is summer and there is much vacationing and fun to be had and the cake and baby carriage fruit basket are weighing on her. I have made arrangements to do the cake myself (with my Mothers help) and will enlist my Dad and Aunts to help to create the fruit basket. Hopefully she will be able to handle the rest. If you were invited, please call and tell her you will not attend so she can relax.

I hate parties. I have had very few successful parties in my life.

Some people regularly throw the parties of the century and I have helped out for many of them so you would think I could replicate the process but alas, the problem isn't my party throwing skills it is instead my social skills. I simply don't have that many friends and the ones I have are scattered about. Even when I was surrounded by my friends in CA I didn't want to throw a party (I had to be dragged into a going away party) because I am afraid no one will show up (Did you ever throw a party where no one showed up? I have and it's about the saddest picture you ever saw).

Before I drift into a pity party I should admit that I believe that I have not done my part in creating lasting friendships in my life. I seem to move between insufferable neediness to detached friendliness making me hard get close to and harder to know. It's this kind of social ineptness that worries me as I get closer to raising another human being. How can I demonstrate how to make friends and influence people when I am so horrible?

I have always wished to have the kind of relationships with people that I have heard other people talk about; friendships that endure all time and distance meanwhile I seem to wear people out. Either that or I simply become boring after a while.

When I sought friends I remained friendless,
When I cared naught for them I was surrounded
As I reach out to try and understand I am left
Fluttering in existential winds of humanity
What the hell am I doing here anyway?

Still I have wonderful people who have remained in my life at a distance which, quite frankly, may be the best way to know me.

I suppose I will consider myself lucky if I can pass on my natural curiosity and scientific skepticism. Perhaps I should just resign myself to letting him find his own way socially. Who knows, maybe he will teach me how to be a friend.

I wonder how some people make it through the child rearing process and come out the other side with responsible respectful children and others not so much. I mean some failures are obvious. The parent who neglects or coddles a child soon finds themselves with an ill-tempered or insolent young person too far gone to ever redeem. The real issue is you don�t know the result of the experiment until it�s too late to alter its outcome. This fear has faced every parent who has ever brought a child into the world and I believe even the most confident of parents harbor the fear that they are going to screw it all up. The day of reckoning is drawing near and soon a tender soul will be placed in my care,

Scared Much? I am.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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