Do you ever just need a break from family? I do. All the time. But it's not just family with me, I really mean I just need a break from people for the most part. This week though, I do need a break from some family.
To make a long story short, a completely innocent comment on Instagram turned into WWIII for a portion of my family. Curse you social media. I kid you not, if I wrote the whole story out here about 90% of you would agree that there was nothing wrong with what was said. The other 10% wouldn't care. The fallout from it was rough and my sister and I were at a loss. The problem was we were only aware of it when we received a really hurtful text and then no one would pick up their phone so we could talk about it. The text I received was so off the wall, the kind that you keep rereading trying to understand how those words could ever be said let alone written down.
For the first two days I was angry and hurt. It actually felt like a part of me was ripped out and my life would be forever changed. Finally after urging from my husband, I tried calling again. This time they picked up. We talked for a long time trying to get to the bottom of it. I tried to be patient, I tried to listen, I tried to really understand where they were coming from and I tried to keep my emotions in check. The time it took for us to finally speak I'm sure helped because I did really well. The text message, I found out, was a knee jerk reaction to protect loved ones. They admitted that they should have never sent it and eventually apologized. So for now, it's been patched up. Unfortunately some damage has been done.
The very next day I got a text from the same people asking if I was free for them to come down for the weekend because they needed family time. I want things to get better, I really do. Right now though the wounds are fresh and a bandaid cannot heal them. Forgiving them isn't the problem, but it is going to take more than pretending it didn't happen for me to ever feel the same again. So for now, I'm thankful I have a busy weekend ahead of me and hope I don't carry this around for much longer. I have enough weighing me down these days.
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