Funks

So this last weekend I went to another baby shower. It actually has been a while since I last attended one. When I woke up the morning of the "blessed event," I was fairly ambivalent about going to the shower. Well, that's somewhat of a lie. I certainly didn't relish having to be at something 45 minutes away in the suburbs at 12 noon on a Saturday. I also wasn't jumping for joy at the idea of getting dressed up in an "outfit," rather than into my usual Saturday fleece, jeans and vest. But I wasn't dreading the event. I had chalked it up to the sort of thing that you have to do every once in a while for your friends. Now, I have certainly been known to spout off about how boring I think showers in general are. And nothing about Saturday changed my mind on that front either. The games, the sheet cake, the tea sandwiches, the inability to have a real drink since I had to drive myself home afterwards. Ick. But putting that all aside, I wasn't thinking that the event itself would leave me in a funk afterward. I was supposed to go to a party, back in "the city" where I live that night. I was looking forward to it actually. But after three hours of being asked "What's happened in your life since we saw you last year at the wedding?" -- (Yes, my pregnant friend managed to get married, change careers, and have a baby in one year) --I found myself in an unidentifiable funk. I was supposed to head back to the city after the shower, but instead I found myself visiting old friends who are the least traditional people that I know. I told myself I'd only stop there for a quick coffee, and then I would head home to go to the party. But I couldn't make myself leave. I wasn't chatty, I wasn't my usual self, I wasn't even having a particularly great time. But somehow, I just couldn't face doing anything more social than that. I realized today that the baby shower had worked its usual voodoo on me. I'm not someone who is dying to get married or to have children. Well, realistically, I would like to meet that perfect person with whom I will decide not to have children with. But being in that setting, I felt like a loser. Despite my general happiness with my life, my choices, and all of that, I felt, as CLC aptly put it, "lapped." Like everyone else had run circles around me in that old game of life that no longer comes in a box manufactured by Milton Bradley. I know I'll get out of my funk, and I think at this point I probably am out of it. But I'm mad that I fell into it in the first place.