New Kid

When I dropped Eliot off at preschool this morning, one of the moms made her son apologize to mine for his evil treatment on Monday. This was the first I'd heard of it. She told me her little boy had tormented Eliot, and that she'd had a long talk with him about it. I looked at my son dancing down the hallway. He suddenly looked different to me. No one had yet invited Eliot to any birthday parties. When we escorted the kids on field trips, all the other kids gravitated towards buddies, holding hands as they toddled down the sidewalk. But none of them would hold Eliot's hand.


Is it because he's the youngest in the class? Because he's the new kid? Because we live twenty miles out to hell-and-gone, and no one remembers him because we never go to any events in town? Or is he the weird kid? Is he done for, that reputation for oddness or outsider-ness determined in a preschool class following him into gradeschool, then his adolescent years?


I soothed myself quickly. He's two years old, for God's sake. He still has T-ball and swim lessons at the Y to look forward to. Day camp when he turns five. The kids in his preschool class will scatter to kindergartens in three different school districts. Nothing about Eliot is pre-determined. His likeability is still boundless. His capacity for friendship is limited only by his geography. He'll be someone's friend. He'll be fine. Chill, mama.


Then I went to pick up Eliot. I stood by the playground gate waiting with the other moms. Three of them stood in a little huddle next to me. Chatting. Making a plan. A plan to get together. Coffee, one offered. The kids can play on the swingset out back, another one said. And there it was. A playdate planned. And little ol' me, three feet away, completely and obviously not invited.


Really? Me, the new girl? The one who has mentioned her desire to make friends and find her way around here? Three months straight, twice a week, twice each day. I stand in the hallway or in the parking lot with these moms, pulling off boots or dropping off snacks. We chat. Granted, they all have gleaming hair and SUV's next to my frizz and dust, but they know where I'm at. They know I'm trying to make a home here. And there they are, all cake and coffee and kids on the slide. And me, still trying to find one friend. One single friend here that I can call, just one who can listed to me bitch to about this kind of cliquiness. And still. Nada.


Is this going to be life in upstate New York? A lovely, sun-kissed waterfront lapping endlessly across camp? Those crotchety, old mountains looming up over me and grumbling their disinterest in my petty complaints? The unrelenting sensation of loneliness, a desperate little flutter of need? And, of course, there is no quality more attractive in a person than desperation. And isn't this the kick in the ass? The loneliner I get, the more awkward my conversations and urgent my attempts to connect, the less appealing I become.


So, I tried to remember all the comforting little promises I made myself this morning. Zumba at the Y and summer work weekends at camp await. Someone, somewhere is a pal waiting to become mine. She doesn't know it yet, but I'll find her. I'll be fine. Chill, mama. As if.