owning the hot potato.

After a few month hiatus from the blogging world, I'm back with a much greater sense of clarity and direction, not only in things I want to blog about, but in my life. There have been some ongoing family issues which have caused me great stress and anxiety and though I haven't completely come to terms with those issues, I'm dealing with them head on and learning how to manage my emotions. Since April, we've done some traveling in Europe (post to come soon!), gone on our yearly family beach vacation (book suggestions to come soon!), made some minor (read very minor) updates to the house, have continued to work out and started actually eating healthier, rather than just talking about eating healthier, and maybe, just maybe we've gotten closer to "being ready"... wink wink

To recap the family situation, and put it to blog-rest (apologies for the length of this), all hell broke loose, so to speak, after Christmas (yes, 7 months ago) with my in-laws, and some pretty horrible things were said about me and my family. Since then I've seen my MIL once for Mother's Day (which I suggested for the sake of my husband and which ended horribly) and I've exchanged maybe 2 emails with my SIL (though I've sent a countless number and have received no reply). Neither one has attempted to make amends with us (even though we've tried on a few occasions to meet them in the middle) and at this point, hubs has more of a pen pal relationship with his mother than anything else. Things got so uncomfortable a few months ago that we decided to go speak with a counselor who provided us with a third party opinion of the situation. After 5 sessions, we concluded, with the help of the counselor, that the best direction for us was to learn to cope with our own emotions and anxieties and to takes steps towards worrying less about how other people feel, what they think and things they say, no matter how hurtful or upsetting.

At first this seemed extremely unfair to me. I've been called names and unfairly accused of extremely hurtful things and I'm supposed to sit back and take it and deal with my emotions internally rather than expressing the hurt I'm feeling? Absolutely. With the amount of emotional distress that my MIL and SIL are dealing with, I've become the scapegoat for their problems (as diagnosed by the counselor). MIL and SIL seem to view me as their common ground to come together and use as sort of a punching bag, allowing them to overlook their own issues and instead point out any flaw they believe I have. Reacting only adds fuel to the fire. The counselor described it as similar to playing the game "Hot Potato". Not wanting to be the last one holding the hot potato, one throws it to the next person to avoid being the last person holding the potato. This metaphor certainly describes the back and forths we had when everything unfolded and is the reason that a resolution was never reached; why we never were able to meet in the middle. No one ever wanted to be left holding the hot potato.

I own the hot potato now and I will continue to be it's keeper. I have not reacted outwardly when I'm upset by them. I have refrained from expressing the hurt I'm feeling, not only for myself but for my husband who feels family-less and I've started "accepting", for lack of a better word, the position my in-laws are putting me in, without letting it define me. Hubs is disappointed in his family and the entire situation but we plan to hold on tight to the hot potato, deal with our own anxieties over the situation and play the waiting game. I have to say, the lack of fighting and interacting altogether has been much better than the constant criticism we received before. Since we've stopped reacting, they've stopped reacting. The only issue however, is that our relationships aren't going to mend themselves. We've reached out to them multiple times and have yet to receive the response we've hoped for. We're going to continue to hold out hope.

Moving on... the hubs was traveling for work recently and I had a chance to go visit him for about a week - Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic are beautiful this time of year! I highly recommend Prague! Also, we may or may not have highly considered and acted (ahem) on the possibility of a baby when I visited him, but we now know it wasn't our time. I'm ok with that, but I will admit that there was a moment of extreme happiness when it hit me that I could potentially be pregnant, followed by a freak out session - so yeah, maybe it was for the best, for the time being.

Like I said, clarity and direction. I feel like I'm finally catching up to my self imposed life to-do list in addition to the lists I make for myself everyday, and I'm ready to start having a bit more fun.

If you've made it through this ridiculously long, information overloaded post, I suggest you reward yourself with one of these delicious morsels. They are to. die. for!

Funner (yes, funner) posts to come! I promise!