‘It’s Just A Meeting, My Son Said When I Didn’t Receive An Invitation To His Big Engagement Party. So I Transferred Back The $25k From The Honeymoon Fund And Updated The Flights I Had Arranged For Them.

Then Caroline’s Instagram story flashed in my mind again. Two hundred guests raising glasses in celebration while I sat home alone—uninvited and unwanted. I pressed transfer funds.

And watched as $25,000 moved back into my personal account. Next, I opened my email and composed three messages to exclusive resorts in Bali, the Maldives, and the Italian Amalfi Coast. Each one canceling the honeymoon reservations I had secured through years of professional connections.

Reservations that were practically impossible to get. Reservations that I had planned to present to the couple after their wedding. Dear Amelia, I wrote to the manager of the Cliffside Villa in Positano.

Unfortunately, I need to cancel the two-person reservation for Wellington Pearson this coming September. Please release the villa back into your inventory. I do hope we can work together on another event soon.

As I pressed send on the final cancellation, a strange lightness spread through my chest. For the first time in decades, I had prioritized my own dignity over my son’s desires. It felt foreign.

Uncomfortable. And oddly freeing. I reached for my phone again, this time dialing my travel agent.

“Sandra, it’s Diana Wellington. Remember that trip to Aspen we’ve been talking about for years? I’d like to book it for tomorrow.

Yes, just me. First class everything.”

Twenty-four hours later, I settled into a plush chair on the terrace of the Little Nell—Aspen’s most exclusive hotel. The mountains stretched before me, majestic and eternal, as a server placed a flute of champagne in my hand.

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