Goodbyes are the hardest thing you have to go through in your life. Period. It doesn't matter if you're saying your final goodbye to someone close to you who has passed on, or you're deciding to move on with the next chapter of your life ultimately leaving someone in the past. Goodbyes are hard.
My last post is about saying goodbye to my mother. I'm sure some of my family has read my post, including maybe even my mother, I'm here to tell you something more...
Since I made that post and have said goodbye to my mother, not a single person from her side of my family has talked to me. They all received invitations to a baby shower for our soon to be second child & first birthday party for our first born, while they all received them, I did not hear from a single one on if they were able to make it or not. I didn't receive a message of "sorry, it's too far for us to travel" or "we'll be there depending on weather", not one single thing.
Does the above frustrate me? Yes it does. It frustrates the living hell out of me. Every person who was invited to celebrate our expanding family and our daughter's first birthday was chosen by Wade and I to celebrate and bask in our love for family with us. How can you not have the decency to send us a simple text message saying you're not coming, or let us know that you are? Some of you live as close as an hour and a bit away. Do you feel we haven't made the effort to come and see you? We've called or text everyone when we're in their area to see if they're free for a visit, no matter how short it may be, or how cranky our child is.
I can tell you now, that actions speak louder than words. Whether my mother is spouting lies about what happened between us, or she's telling a one sided story, EVERY side of a story deserves to be heard. You're not asking, you're not listening, you're not even trying...Lets make things fair.
Do you know how stress free my life has become because I don't have a consistent heavy weight pressing on my chest and shoulders? My life has been amazing, since I made the choice to say goodbye to my mother. You are likely sitting there judging me for saying the above, or judging me for cutting my mother out of my life...JUDGE AWAY. I don't care. It's my life, I have a family that I have to look out for and I don't want prescription pill (or otherwise) addicts, or someone who is an alcoholic or is showing alcoholic tendencies around my family, around my children, bringing in their terrible habits, their horrible addictions, or their added stress into my children's lives.
ASK YOURSELF; would you want someone who has been addicted to prescription pills for as long as you can remember, stole money from you and your sibling, borrowed money from family and had zero intentions of paying it back, stole money from the company she was working for, or is showing signs of other addictions around your family? How many of you thought about the impact this would have on your children, on your family, on yourself before answering yes or no? Some people don't think about it.
I grew up with it, I grew up being accused of taking all of my father's morphine pills one time because I happened to see where he hid them, and when he needed one, they were gone. Do you know how that would make your child feel when their father knows their child didn't or wouldn't have taken them, but also knows they're the only one who saw where they were? I do, it made me feel terrible, but I don't blame my father, I was the one who saw where they were. Did I take them? No I didn't, I saw where he put them and moved on with my life forgetting about them until a while down the road when he needed one and they were gone. Have you found stashes of pills hidden in socks in your family's laundry room, in weird places, or in sock drawers when you're looking for a pair of socks similar to your own in your mother's drawers? I have. Has this made you think a little more about your decision to have someone with these tendencies around you and your family? Could you honestly say you would want these behaviours around your children? Could you honestly say you would trust this person enough to let them watch your children? Would you be okay having cash around your house, or anything more than regular strength Tylenol in your house if this person was coming to visit?
I am not okay with any of the above. I'm not okay with not trusting someone enough to watch my children, or to leave them in my house with pain medications, any sort of cash, or anything else. These people are toxic, this is the type of person where a goodbye is needed, where you need to close that chapter of your life and push forward. Relieve yourself of that stress, of that anxiety, of that heavy weight pressing down on you, you will feel crappy about it for a while, but it gets better because your life becomes more positive. My life has become SO amazingly positive now that I don't have that negativity around me, my daughter is so much happier because I am so much happier, and quite honestly, my pregnancy is going drastically better than my last because I don't have the additional stresses of this relationship. I don't have to worry about backlash if I say something the wrong way or take too long to send a text message response.
Think about your life, about your relationships and friendships, think about your children and how your stresses or anxieties affect them. Make the changes necessary to better yourself, your life, and to make your future better, along with the future of your children (whether you're trying, expecting, or already have children). Evaluate those relationships and friendships, and how they make you feel, and get rid of the negative. Lead a more positive life, lead a healthier life - for the sake of yourself, your children and your new family. DO IT FOR YOU.
