The Invisible Woman

We moved last month from Ohio to Massachusetts. In addition to all the other changes of moving: changing my billing address at 25 different places, changing my email address at another 125 different places, changing cell phone numbers, changing grocery stores, pediatricians, dentists, hair stylists, gynecologists, and dry cleaners, there has been one other significant change I have yet to make.

I have to change friends.

Now of course I’ll keep in touch with all my friends from Cincinnati and Toledo that I have made so far, but I mean the casual friends. I have no friends in Massachusetts, casual or otherwise. My 9 yr old daughter remedied her friendless state by the third week of school by simply asking another little girl “do you want to be friends?” The little girl said yes and they are, as I write, upstairs playing happily together. It’s not quite so easy for adults. As an “unknown” at my daughter’s school I spend a lot of time on the outside looking in. I am at the edge of the group at pickup time, listening in, smiling, trying to look friendly, casual, open, but not lonely. Trying to look like I’m part of the group without actually BEING included in the group. I get to listen to a lot that way. Because of my “unknown” status I am actually quite benign and therefore gossip is not whispered around me, voices are not lowered, backs are not turned, and eyes are not averted. You see, right now, I don’t really exist at band practice, art club, or pick up from school. This status is both unnerving and exhilarating. I get the benefit of seeing how people behave when they don’t realize they’re being watched but I suffer the anonymity of not really being seen. I know I won’t have this status forever. My cloak of invisibility will be fading soon as I get more involved at my daughter’s school, work at recess, volunteer during Book Fair and “prove” myself worthy of being known. I am lonely a lot, so I look forward to the time when the pack accepts me, sniffs me out as one of their own, if you will. But I know someday, not next week or even next month, but in a couple of months when I am running with the pack and therefore subject to ridicule by the pack, I’ll miss this time of being the Invisible Woman.