We have so little control

It is not always easy to do what is best for yourself.  This could involve even the more mundane things like eating healthy, working out enough, taking time for just yourself, or could involve more serious subjects like walking out of a bad relationship, turning your back on a friend, or getting yourself treatment for [enter any form of mental disease, anxiety, or substance abuse].

It is especially difficult when friends or family oppose what you are doing.  For me, dealing with my recent family drama, I am going against what feels natural.  I want to jump in and fix things and make things all better - that's just in my nature.  It's more difficult for me to walk away because it means having to accept that I cannot control everything.  As a person, I am very organized and some would even say rigid.  So, accepting that some things are out of my control is difficult.  But that doesn't change the fact that it's necessary.  And that it may be in my best interest to walk away, to not get involved, to change this pattern of always trying to fix things.

It's hard to accept that the only thing I can control is me.  My reactions, how long I sit and dwell on things, and whether I want to focus on the positive or negative in my life, and the positive or negative people in my life.  The rest, it's out of my hands.

Coming to this realization is also freeing.  Even though it goes against everything in my body that screams CONTROL, it lifts things off my shoulders to say, it's not in my hands.

With the family drama, I've gotten mixed opinions on how I am handling the situation.  I have chosen to walk away from the situation and person.  Most family and friends who know about the situation have been incredibly supportive.  But a couple others want me to get over it, or offer advice of what works for them - they think it'll be easiest for the entire family if I just go back to the way things used to be, of me fixing things.  As much as I appreciate their advice, they are offering what is best for them.  They don't want to deal with the awkwardness of the situation.  That's the difference.  What works for someone else may not work for me. 

Then there are my two bestest friends who only have my interest at heart - they are focusing on me, baby and Ian.  And they seriously have been my life savers.  They remind me when I need it, they bring me up when I'm down, and they are so incredibly supportive.  They are the two best friends a girl could ever ask for.

But, that's not to say that there are not consequences to the way I am choosing to react to the horrible situation.  There are some very sad consequences to the situation.  Like the fact that I won't have a shower for this baby.  At least not the type of shower I always imagined I'd have.  I may have a small one with my closest friends, but there won't be a family shower, or a shower with all of our family friends there.  And as sad as I am for me, I'm mostly sad for my baby.  She deserves to be showered by all of our family and friends.  She deserves to see, in the album I'm making her of what life was like while she was in the womb, the pictures from a shower with everyone excited for her arrival.  She deserves all of that.

The next question I'm faced with in this whole scheme of things is do I want to have a shower at all?  If I can't have the baby shower I've always wanted, is it worth it to me?  Most of my friends say I need to have some type of shower.  But I'm not so sure I want one.  It almost will be more sad to have one, knowing that the family drama has taken away the shower I'd always wanted.  I almost feel better not having one at all, and Ian and I showering our own baby with all of the love and gifts we can.  I can't imagine showing our baby girl pictures of a shower where her family isn't there.  And this isn't a situation where we can invite some family and not others - if we have one, no family will be there.  Awkward, right?? 

It seems like less stress to not have one as well.  If we were to have one, but not the one where all of our family and friends can be a part of, I know I'd be super involved in the planning and deciding on things.  I don't want that.  I've had enough stressful moments during this pregnancy and quite honestly, I just want to sit back and relax and focus all of my joy on our baby girl once school is over.

So what do you do when you don't know what the best choice is for you?  I know I'm not giving tons of details of what's going on here, but how would you handle the whole shower dilemma?