Etiquette Faux Pas

In my lifetime to date, and I'm sure in years to come, I have made (and will make) many faux pas when it comes to etiquette. After all, how many of us are perfect? Well - there is Miss. Manners but honestly, I bet she wasn't always so perfect. :)

Once, when my daughter was eight months old, my son was 3.5 years and Dakota had just began evening law school I was invited to dinner at the home of a mom in my moms club. I was in the throes of PPD and I was a mess. I finally accepted her offer for dinner because I genuinely liked her - even though, quite honestly, she intimidated me. She was so worldly and well-read. She had an impressive career that she was eager to get back to, lived in a gigantic and beautiful house, etc.

We enjoyed a dinner that she made for us after making an entire kid-friendly meal for the little one(hers and mine) and I had a really nice evening.

I always meant to invite her over to my house for dinner. Honestly, I did. I knew it was the right thing to do and it would be fun - even if my world was nothing near as grand as hers. Dinner wouldn't be anything fancy because I don't cook very well at all and would never think to force someone, not related to me, to eat anything that I might be able to come up with (kid meals I can do but nothing adult-centered. That was always Dakota's thing - she is a great cook!). But....as time does, it got away from me.

I was struggling so, so, so hard to keep things together while it literally felt like things were coming apart at the seams. Things spun out of control there for a while and I just never did put the invite out there. Mostly I was just trying to keep my head above water (and mostly failing to do that) and the thought of entertaining and keeping things together during the evening hours was completely beyond my reach.

So...time went by. By the time I could breathe again it felt like way too much time had passed and we no longer really saw each other since she had returned to work and was rarely at the weekly moms group. (To be fair, I was hardly there either.)

Our relationship, when we did run into each other, was always friendly and never strained. Eventually, I let go of the "I need to do this" pressure I had on myself.

But - I still feel guilty for not responding in kind with a dinner invitation. And I hope that she forgives me. And I hope someday I can let go of feeling guilty about it.

I appreciate the rules of etiquette, for the most part. But sometimes I think we all need to forgive ourselves and each other for indiscretions we all make along the way.