Check your baggage at the door.

This post comes with lots of baggage.  If this post were going somewhere on a plane, the baggage check fees would cost way more than the actual plane ticket.  I'm just saying.

Y'all know I have issues.  Serious ones.  If you think I don't have serious issues then you don't know me.  Once again, I'm just saying.

The whole "baggage" metaphor really works here because I can use it in two ways.  I *could* write this post and leave out all the feelings and dark and twisty stuff.  I *could* just write about how I went to the Christmas gathering on my dad's side of the family for the first time in 9 years and how happy people were to see me and meet Jayna, etc.  But...that's just not me.  I *could* leave all the baggage that accompanies this post up there in my noggin.  But I just can't do it.

I am compelled to write about the feelings.  The dark.  The twisty.  The emotional roller coaster that is reconciling with a part of your family with whom you were once fairly close and then a bomb dropped.  The hurt and disappointment that came along with my own family choosing someone else over me.  And on my wedding day?  Well, that just really twists the knife that was already in my back...

I won't tell that whole story here.  I could actually write a book about it...that's how long that story is.  I will say that going to this gathering was a big deal for me.  I had prepared somewhat of a speech for the moment when someone in the room brought up the fact that I just "showed up out of nowhere" after almost 10 years.  I was ready for the condescending looks and the silent judgment that often comes along with that side of the family.  I was prepared to leave in tears.  I didn't go in on the defense, I was just prepared.  I.  Was.  Prepared.

We went.  I made the actual decision to go only one hour before we had to leave.  I rode in the car the entire way there with a knot in my stomach.  And the knot moved to my throat the moment we walked in the door. 

Everyone was actually genuinely happy to see us.  It was...unexpected.  I did expect a few people to be outwardly happy that we were there.  But some...I expected some to just continue to judge.  But that didn't happen. 

Everyone left their baggage at the door (see?? two times in the same post!!).  We left the past in the past and celebrated in the name of reconnections and happiness.  And we had a good time.  I caught up with aunts and uncles and cousins.  It was very eerily like I'd never missed a year of being there.  My dad and my grandma were just ecstatic that we were there.  Jayna enjoyed herself and got to meet some new people, including some new kids.  All in all it was a wonderful time...much to my surprise. 

These are all the children of my cousins and, of course, my own kid.

Chris helping Jayna open gifts from my dad and my aunt and uncle.

Chaos in a very small house...

Jayna got lots of toys!  She got a laptop computer thingy that sings and helps her with shapes and a singing book from my Aunt Bev and Uncle Rusty.  She got the Little People Play 'n Go School and the Elmo Giggle Cell Phone from my dad.  The cell phone sings the song for Elmo's World, so she loves that!!

I can say that going and reconnecting was a big relief.  A weight lifted.  And all that preparing?  I"ll save it for next time. :)