Since our son was born, we've had quite a bit on our plates, and the bulk of it had little to do with the new baby in the house.  We work pretty diligently at keeping drama out of our home, and when it worms it's way in, it's pretty difficult to deal with.  I don't deal well with stress (and that's an understatement, just ask my husband). Luckily, my husband takes pretty much anything in stride, so he's usually a great balance for me.  The last two years though, have kept me out of sorts quite a bit of the time.  Some probably find that surprising.  I usually put on a pretty calm face for the rest of the world, but inside, I've been more stressed than I could ever put words to.

When our son was born, we knew there would be quite a bit of family coming to visit to meet the baby, and we were prepared for that.  It was most helpful in the months after he was born really, especially since I had a c-section and wasn't allowed to cary anything that weighed more than my lil man, including him strapped into his lil carrier car seat.  So it was great having family here to help me get things done that I couldn't do, and help me get my son to and from his doctors appointments and such.  I am truly grateful for the help I got in those early months, it really made things much easier.

The problems really started a few months later... I'm not going to get into the details of what exactly happened because it's not my dirty laundry to air out.  Lets just say, we voluntarily agreed to help some family members out with some important situations that they could not deal with on their own.  We got involved because we were needed and there weren't any better options, and we love our family no matter what.  The thing is, things never work out the way they are planned, and we knew that going in. We are pretty flexible people so that wasn't initially a problem, but some of that flexibility came back to bite us in the fanny later on.  What we were terrible with, was setting boundaries when it comes to helping those we love.  It's something we're really still dealing with, and it will probably always be a struggle.

As often happens when drama is involved things pretty much snowballed on us, and we dealt the best way we knew how.  Now, we're dealing with cleaning up the mess we've made of our own lives in the process of helping others.  We opened up our home and our lives to those we love, and put too much of ourselves into it.  We gave and gave, physically, financially and emotionally, and in the end we are the ones paying the price.  Our finances are in shambles, our home is a disaster, and I for one am too emotionally spent to put any more emotion into anyone else's problems at all.  All I can manage for the time being is taking care of my immediate household needs.  My son is my focus throughout the day, and when my husband isn't working as much overtime as possible to make up for our financial difficulties, I spend as much time with him as I can.

I'm still working through learning the lessons in all this.  I know lesson number one is to remember to take care of myself and my family even when I'm trying to help someone else.  I can't put all of myself into someone else's problems, no matter how serious those problems are.  My husband and my son need me and the only way I can be there for them, is if I'm taking care of myself too.  I have to take care of all of myself though, my emotions, my spirituality, my whole being.  I talk a good game, people probably think I do pretty good remembering those things.  The truth is, I am just as bad as the next person at remembering that I'm an important person too, and I suffer for it sometimes.

Going forward, I'm taking things one day at a time.  Some days I have to force myself to get dressed and get things accomplished though.  I do know that  we'll get through these challenges, we seem to pull through pretty well given enough time.  I just hope that we learn the lessons well because I don't need any repeat performances.  Only time will tell.