Brave

I have been brave before.

 I moved away and lived alone to go to University.  I travelled though much of Asia by myself. I worked and supported myself until I was 28 and moved in with Jack. I chose to adopt children from foster care not once but twice. When parenting got hard I found other parents on the internet who were living my life and became friends with them. I travelled throughout North America and made those internet friends real in life friends. Their kids played with my kids and we hours talking about why we made the choices we did. I advocated for my kids with schools and therapists and was bold when I needed to be.

I could do brave.

Then in September the bottom fell out of my world and I felt like I would never be brave again. I felt like I lost my brave in the days that came and that my life as I knew it was over.

Today as I sat in a courtroom with Randall I did not feel brave. I felt defeated. I felt small and scared and unsure of my choices. I felt like this is not a place that I want to be and yet here I am trying to figure out which way is up in a situation where I have very little control.

Yesterday as I thought about supporting Randall in court day I had a panic attack. Last night as I held Kate as she cried because she has a nightmare that involved Kevin killing her while she was school I could not believe this was my reality.

When I chose to be brave with my life I had no idea it wold turn out like this. Today I wish that I had been less brave and perhaps a little more like my peers that I grew up with who had pretty regular middle class lives.

Instead I chose to be brave and now I wonder why.