The Death of Confidence

The process of confidence dying isn't over night. It comes because of waves....waves of uncertainty that crashed into me. I remember being 30...that was a long time ago, sort of....and the world was at my feet. Everything seemed to be going right. I had a great husband, great kids, a great job, we finally had our own home, newish cars. It was all going right...and then it happened. I still have the great husband, kids, and home, so I should be grateful for that alone. I mean, I know there are people with none of those things EVER. Knowing that I'm lucky is sort of making it hard for me to try to regain my confidence really. I mean, I feel really guilty when I start to think about it....

Anyway, it hit me. Part of my confidence died a few years ago...here's the long, sorted tale....

It was the night before Easter in 2004 when the phone rang. My mom (that is really an aunt that raised me) called to tell me some bad news. My biological father passed away. Well that is bad news, but that wasn't the end of it. She also said that he had two boys that were young and they were in foster care. You could have blown me down with a feather. I really didn't know about the boys and man, they were young, 7 and 9.

See, I hadn't spoken to my father in ....hmmm....since 1994. He was some more piece of work. I had to cut myself off from him to save my sanity. I mean, what child should have to threaten their father with 'punishment' to make them act like decent human beings??? Seriously. So when I married my husband and moved, I just didn't give him my information. Later I regretted it, and even more so when I found out how despicable the living conditions were where he lived with my two half brothers. (More on that later maybe)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I went to their town and sought custody of J and J. God was truly looking out for them, though. They had wonderful foster parents and the city did everything they could to help us all out during this time.

The boys needed somebody. I fought for them and brought them home. Boy, was I in for a surprise....Life was NOT happily ever after. It was a long and hard two and a half years of trying to 'fix' them...btw, you can't fix anybody. Boy did we all learn that the hard way. So after that time, we gave custody to their biological mom. I miss them, I really do, but I think we are all better off now.

So that's part one of the death of my confidence.