Saturday, June 13, 2015

On My Mind... Off My Chest

Last week someone made a comment to me that was hurtful and untrue, this post is about my feelings on the subject.

Today I visited my grandmother, she is almost 80 and I have not been a very good granddaughter as I haven't visited her very much since Sawyer has been born, maybe 4 times, and I've passed her house many more times than that. Life gets busy, which is not a valid excuse, in fact there are no valid excuses. I dropped the ball and for that I am truly sorry. I will be making a valiant effort in the future, I owe that to her, especially since she's old and not able to travel far. I also visited my mom, memaw and pawpaw, they get along a little better than grandma and grandpa but are also a little younger than they are. When Chance and I got engaged (6 years ago tomorrow) we decided we would move to Berryville because at the time his dad was battling cancer and we felt that our presence here was more needed than with my family in NWA, so we moved. All my family was only an hour away at the time and we said we would make an effort to visit at least once a month, we were generally able to do that at first. Since then we've become youth leaders in our church, committee members for our local Relay for Life, on top of both of us working 40+ hours a week, and oh yeah... we had a baby!! So yes, life got busy. Our once a month commitment turned into every other month, on top of the family we needed to visit we also left some great friends over there whom we also longed to see and catch up with. Visiting everyone in one day was not an option, so therefore we had to split up our time. It was easy when it was just us to take off after work on a Friday night and take the dogs or leave them with Chance's parents. Not so easy anymore. Then some of the family moved, it actually made it easier to see them since they were now closer to us and on our way home.

Fast forward to present day. Family has moved again, some far away and have come back, some a little further away than before. What's great about technology these days is that I can text photos and videos to Sawyer's grandparents so that they feel involved and since they don't get to see him everyday. Since I've moved here I've heard so many times that I don't visit enough. This isn't anything new but I honestly do try. It's hard. Having a baby makes it harder. It's a constant battle knowing that we only have this much time and this many people we have to try to see.

Here's what I don't understand, why is it only on us to make sure that we see my family. Why are we expected to be the ones to travel to NWA every time. It is the same distance from here to there as it is from there to here. An effort should be made by all parties involved. Friends and family. I am tired, on weekends I want to be selfish and cuddle my baby and hang out at home and clean my house or watch TV with my husband. Catch up on chores around the house that have fallen behind during the week or even for months because we have been gone on weekends visiting.

I try. I believe that God sees my efforts and knows my heart, He knows that if we aren't able to make something or aren't able to visit at a moments notice it's not because we don't want to its because we can't. I admit that we can do a better job splitting our time however we can all do a better job of seeing to it that the relationships stay strong. I have an aunt that lives in Tulsa and growing up they would come visit us and we would go visit them... it's what families do. We weren't reliant on one person or the other to make sure we saw each other we both put in the effort.

I miss my family and friends terribly, but I'm no longer going to be the only one to make an effort to see them, or to see to it that he has a relationship with them. I'm also letting go of what everyone else thinks.

This isn't the first time I've been the "selfish" one or the "inconsiderate" one or the "ungrateful" one. I guess those are just my titles in this family. It doesn't matter that no one ever calls, texts, or comes to see me it only seems to matter that I don't do all those things... Now that I'm here on my blog I really don't want to list out everything I "don't" do... I'm tired of defending myself.  So I'm washing my hands of it. I'm letting it go, the hurtful words that were said the things I may have said in anger. I'm truly sorry for anything I may have said or done to offend but I'm doing the best I can. I'm ending this post so that I don't say anything else that can be taken out of context or that can be twisted around.

Sawyer is starting to wake up so I've got to go tend to him. Good night friends.

Ashley