Maybe Things Happen For A Reason
Hello!
If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that I was going to be a bit late with this post because I had a family event to go to that I was worried about and I wanted to wait until after. That event was my nephew's christening and is actually happening as I write this. I realised shortly after that Instagram post that Mum and I had got the date of the christening wrong and had flown all the way up to Scotland on the wrong day... Of course, I had a panic attack when I realised and had a complete meltdown but having calmed down I can see that the christening just wasn't meant to be and in missing the christening, there are more positives than negatives to come out of it.
Now there are very few people that know the full reason why I didn't want to go so I'll give a little bit of background.
Side-note: Dad, if you're reading this, this is not an attack, I'm not going to start going into gory details, this is just a background.
As you probably know, my Mum and Dad divorced when I was a baby. Dad remarried for the second time after Mum two years ago. In an unfortunate series of events there became a large rift in the family causing great upset on all sides. Dad and I haven't seen each other since the wedding and have not had too many helpful conversations since either. Things aren't great and since Christmas really we've been trying to sort things out but haven't had a huge amount of success. At this point, I don't want to be picking sides or having any more arguments, I'm just trying to get to a friendly relationship with Dad and his wife. Start again if you will.
Now, I don't know if any of you are subscribers to the idea that things happen for a reason but I definitely am and believe in that more after this event. There were a number of strange circumstances and obstacles that cropped up in preparation for the christening to the point that Mum and I joked on the way saying that it looked like the christening wasn't going to happen - little did we know that we were right. We left 3 hours before our flight and still got caught in traffic. You will know how meticulous I am when preparing for a flight and have often been described as military in the way I check and double check that I have everything with me. This time I didn't. I forgot my passport and the only form of photo identification I had with me was my university student card. Luckily it worked. At security, we both caused the detector to bleep (common in my case, unheard of in Mum's). The flight was unusually turbulent and then it took us over an hour to collect our car at the car hire as everything seemed to go wrong. Once we were driving to our AirBnb we came across an unannounced diversion which led us to drive straight past Dad's house. We then very nearly missed a turning. Had we missed that turning, the road we would had gone down would have led us to the house that Dad and his then fiancee first moved into together. Of course we were then speaking about how things might be when we saw each other. And to top it all, when we realised that we were due to fly home the day before the christening, we noticed that neither of us had brought any spare clothing or underwear (again, very uncharacteristic for both of us) which meant that we wouldn't have been able to stay longer even if we wanted to. And when went through all our texts to see whether a date had ever been mentioned we found that all our conversations about it had been verbal so there had obviously been a mix up. All very odd and perhaps coincidental but it seemed to us like signs that we never meant to get to the christening.
On the positive side, my sister found the whole situation highly amusing and we spent the Saturday with her, the children, and her in-laws anyway. And we spent more time catching up than we would have done had we been at the event.
On the Dad front, I texted him to ask whether we could meet on the Saturday to speak and to be honest he sent a rather hurtful reply. Mum had been taking a back seat for the past two years but this was the last straw for her so she phoned him and sent him a polite text to ask whether we could meet to rebuild things. Luckily he replied to her with the same level of politeness and has expressed a willingness to sort things out. So, Mum and I joked on the way home that maybe we went to Scotland to open what we are affectionately calling the Murray peace-talks. For those of you confused, I changed my name from Murray to Draper when I was 6, a year after Mum married my step-dad because I wanted to feel like we were a proper family. Alas, my initials now spell out SAD but what can you do?
So I guess the lesson here is to try and see the positives when things go wrong. There is always a lesson to be learnt or an unexpected consequence that happens when things don't go to plan. If anything, this could be something to put your mind at ease if you've ever been in this situation. Things will be ok in the end.
As always, feel free to like, message, and share.
Lots of Love,
Sarah xxx
