Self confidence has never been my strong suit. I spend so much time second guessing myself, and asking myself what if. This is something I have dealt with for a long time now. I don’t have as many rough patches as I used to, but some days are easier than others for me.

For a long time there things were going so well, and I was finally happy and things really seemed to be looking up. All it took to turn things on its head for me was a whole lot of horrible things in a very short amount of time. In a matter of months I lost almost everything I owned in a break in, and also lost my aunt, my father and a childhood best friend. In the last year alone I’ve also lost another aunt, a mentor who was like a second mother to me, and my grandfather, not to mention our beautiful white kitty.

There have also been many good things that have happened that have made it all easier, like getting married to my wonderful loving husband, and the birth of our beautiful little boy. I know I have a lot in my life that is good, so I don’t understand why I’m not floating on cloud nine. No, I’m not depressed, but I don’t feel nearly as happy and optimistic as it seems I should be.

My son is the thing that by far makes me the most happy. He smiles and I can’t help but smile with him. He laughs and I forget everything else but him. I don’t know how he does it, but it’s the most amazing thing. I don’t know what I would do without him. Even when I’m tired and I grumble and complain, he makes everything completely worth it for just one of those smiles.

It’s just that sometimes I wish I could do better for him. I don’t have much money, and making it paycheck to paycheck is a huge worry for us. With John unable to find work and my small income all we have for the moment, money is always a huge worry. I do the best I can, and try to stay ahead on the things that I can.

Maybe my packratish tendencies make me a little crazy, but I’m always trying to keep diapers, clothes and formula at least a bit ahead of when we need it. I’ve gone without enough in my life, that I don’t ever want to take the chance on my son ever needing something and it not being there. I’m always buying clothes a size or two ahead of what he is wearing, and putting them away for him to wear later.

I guess I still have so many people’s voices in the back of my head, the ones that always reminded me of just how imperfect I was. Why isn’t the house spotless? Why don’t I have a job making tons of money? Why am I a size 18 instead of a size 4? Does any of that really matter?

I try the best I can to be a good person. I have never set out to hurt anyone, well, at least not without being provoked or backed into a corner first. I write books that no one reads, that I’ve all but given up on finishing, because even the people closest to me don’t seem to want to bother to give looking at them a second thought. It’s hard to want to keep writing these stories when you’re the only person who is ever going to know anything about them.

Maybe someday I’ll find my way back to optimism. I seem to have misplaced it somehow in the shuffle of one thing after another. Maybe when the smoke clears, life will go back to something resembling normal. Maybe we will have reason to hope and not so much reason to worry. Keeping my fingers crossed.