Im not invited to my mother's birthday

Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday. There’s going to be a family get-together. The whole family WhatsApp group has been buzzing for days. Plans, outfits, food, timings, cousins coming over. Everyone got their calls.

Except me.

I live barely an hour away from them.

It’s been around four months since I dropped out of the course my parents chose for me and enrolled myself into something I actually wanted. Since then, things have changed in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. We still talk sometimes, but our calls barely last 2-3 minutes. It feels more like obligation than conversation.

My cousins recently got their 12th board results and scored above 90%. They genuinely worked hard and I have absolutely no bitterness towards them. But my mother hasn’t missed a single opportunity to compare me to them, directly or indirectly. Posting them constantly. Praising them. Having them over all the time.

I don’t even get jealous anymore. I just feel sad sometimes.

Sad for her, because maybe she feels disappointed she didn’t get a daughter who could score above 90% and make her proud in that specific way.

And sad for myself, because I genuinely cannot remember what it feels like to be appreciated by either of my parents.

I know they still financially support me, and I’m grateful for that. Honestly, that’s also the reason I stay quiet no matter how harsh things get sometimes. It feels like I haven’t earned the right to feel hurt because technically, they still “do enough.”

My mother has asked me multiple times not to come to family functions because she can’t stand having me around her overachieving nephews and nieces. And maybe that’s why this silence hurts more than an actual rejection. No one even asked if I’ll be coming tomorrow.

The strange part is, I don’t even think I’m some horrible failure the way I’m made to feel sometimes. I know I messed up in places. I know I’m not extraordinary. But I also know I’m trying.

I want to go home tomorrow.

But I know no text or call is coming.

Not posting this for sympathy. I just wanted to put this feeling somewhere instead of letting it sit inside me all night.