Do we ever really get over high school?

Okay, fine, I admit it. I like being in control of things, and I'm pretty good at it. Particularly, I like to think I'm good at keeping my emotions in check. If someone cuts me off and then flips me the bird, I'll admit that steam comes out of my ears, and if I flip past Animal Planet and a mama whatever is nursing or licking it's cub, oh, the tears well up, but for the most part, I'm pretty good at being reasonable and calm.

So, enter this last weekend. I found out through a series of Facebook posts and information from my hubby that a group of my friends were taking a trip. A shopping trip. A girls shopping trip. An all girls, no babies, overnight shopping trip. And I hadn't been invited or told about it.

Holy emotions, Batman!!! I could not believe how bummed out I got. Am I particularly close to these girls? No, or at least not yet. We hang out pretty often, text each other every once in a while, share books and recipes and laugh really easily together. But the clincher in our relationship, at least for me, is that we have babies that are all pretty much the same age. So, should our friendship progress, our kiddos will be growing up together. And that was it. The realization of how much I want Israel to have a close group of friends is what made me come to terms with my fah-reaking out.

Growing up, I went to a private school, so when my freshman year started at NVHS I didn't know a single person there. Luckily, I was adopted by a group of girls and they were so nice, but I always felt a little bit like a charity case rather than a friend they would choose to hang out with. We had sleepovers and study groups and my four years there were fantastic and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat, but (and this is embarassing) when the time came for graduation rehearsal, and you had to choose the one person you were going to walk with...I didn't have anyone. I ended up walking with a guy who didn't have anyone either.

So when this weekend trip happened, it honestly felt like high school graduation all over again and I was the odd man out.

Now, truth be told, I was completely wrong with what I assumed the girls trip to be. It turned out to be planned by one of the gals mother-in-law and it was an annual tradition and not everyone in our group of friends was going, in fact, hardly any of them were. When I found that out I was really relieved, but I still couldn't get over how emotional I had gotten about the whole thing.

All that to say, I wonder if those little ego bruisings we take on during our youth don't embed themselves as permanent scars in our hearts, and when any situation arises that can bump them and make them hurt again, if it's possible to not overreact. It's embarrassing for me to be this frank and honest because I'm basically letting you all know that I'm not as cool, calm and collected as you think I am, but I think it was important for ME to realize that too. I think it's all too easy to put out a persona that might be 90% you, but really, if you want to be comfortable and confident, then you need to confess up to the crazy 10% that I know is in all of us.