But What If I'm Wrong?

***The following may sound like this post is going to go somewhere.  Please don't be fooled.  I'm not much of a self-help adviser, I don't really have the qualifications (just ask my critics).  I have yet to figure out how to manage all my "Life Helpers" who are always on stand-by with their magnifying glass and tweezers to lovingly pull the shards of wood out of my eye - I surely am in no position to recommend ways on how you can manage yours.  Also, I assure you, this is not about any one person or one situation in particular - that's why everything is generalized and in plural form.

I am starting to get the feeling that I may have more than my fair share of critics.  Are any of you missing yours or running low?  Or do you wonder if the population of your peanut gallery is also a bit on the excessive side?  Maybe we all do, and my list of people willing to fill that job description is no longer than yours?  Or maybe it's cause I've made an abundance of mistakes and am blessed with an abundance of concerned people who always know what I should have done and who are gracious enough to call me out? Or maybe, it's because I have had, regardless of fault, to make a LOT of very difficult decisions in my life and you just simply can't please everyone all of the time?  Whatever the reason is for it, I know this... they're not going to win.  Their combined efforts, no matter how well-intentioned or malicious, are not going to reduce me into this pile of disposed of rubble that's been broken into pieces by heartache, loss, and feelings of inadequacy...

But what if I'm wrong?

What if at any moment the next accusation or insult that gets hurled at me is the proverbial straw?  What if I really am no better than that pile of rubble and I am fighting a losing battle trying to avoid becoming it? What if I really am a bad mom for not letting my girls see their dad due to what I feel is my obligation to protect them from the drug addiction that defines his reality, and whether or not he is as high now as he was 8 years ago when I left is irrelevant to the fact that his way of thinking and his chemically imbalanced mind have already been damaged?  What if I am selfish to be returning to school and essentially forcing my kids to raise themselves and to run a home that their mom should be running?  What if I should have 2 full-time jobs so that when I am home I am home, instead of attempting to get a degree that prevents even my mind from taking a break let alone my schedule and a degree that I should have gotten 16 years ago at that? What if my decision to allow my 15 1/2 year old son -my only baby boy, my first born, my best buddy- leave home was careless and the easy way out?  What if he wanted to leave not because he wanted to pursue his dad and was willing to do so at all costs, but rather because life with me is so difficult and I failed him as his mother and only parent? What if in my attempts to not drown in the constant downpour of feelings of hopelessness and discouragement and failure that I really am not being observant of the people around me and I do come across as selfish and unappreciative?  What if I am still single not because I don't make an effort, but because I'm damaged with too much baggage and people consider being with me a burden?  What if the way I see things and therefore the way I make choices is all delusional because I've convinced myself things are a certain way, but they're not?  What if the struggles I have faced that I have chalked up to Satan trying to stir up lies in order to trip me up is not Satan at all, but merely the reality and consequences of the poor choices I've made?  What if the truth I thought I was trying to listen to was really actually the lies? What if the one chance I get at living my life and raising my kids and serving my God is going to waste because I'm so wrong?

I have never once thought I had all the answers; in fact, I am more often than not the one to be the first to admit I could have done things differently and subsequently better.  But that's the benefit of hindsight, right?  That's why it's called hindsight though. If foresight, however, was 20/20 then the task of making the best decisions would be much less of a difficult one.

But I do the best I know how.


I was told once that just because someone says something doesn't make them right, and it doesn't make what they said the truth.  And I believe that.  I felt that bit of advice was a nugget of gold in the giant vault of advice I am given and have tried to remind myself of it often.  But what if they were wrong?  So then now I'm wrong... again?