You Never Know....

I have had an interesting experience for the past week or so. As I mentioned in my last post, I have had to remember my entire life since the age of 18 and tell the Federal Government all about it. Yesterday, I went in and answered more questions about my past. Now they know more dirt about me than my mother does (don't tell Mom that). I also learned a valuable lesson. Your past WILL come back to haunt you. Mine certainly has.

I can honestly say that I did some stupid things and made some very stupid decisions. And I had to tell this person, who I had never met before, about these stupid things. The worst part is, some of the stupidity may cost me the opportunity I have been given for a job. I can honestly say that right now, I am ready to back out of this whole process to save myself further embarrassment. Should I? I really don't know. But, I am an emotional basket case over it.

Some of the stupidity I can overturn. I made a few (understatement) bad financial decisions over the years. Those black marks I can wipe clean with a little tighter budgeting and time to get it done. Some of the other things are done, over with, and cannot be undone. I won't go into them, let's just say, they are not good things. Nothing illegal, no arrests, nothing like that. But, at the time my thought was, "what could it hurt?" Well, it hurt. And even though I don't know if these things will hurt my chance at this job, it really hurt me to have to admit them. And I felt ashamed to have actually done them. I now wish that I had thought things through and made better decisions.

This has not been all bad. I can now tell my girls how this has affected me, and hopefully they will not follow in my footsteps. Life lessons are always good, even if they hurt initially. And, I was able to look back on my life and say, "I did do some stupid things, but look where I am at now. I picked myself up, and no matter how hard the world tried to push me back, I pushed harder, and will continue until I achieve my life goals." And my goals are simple. To have a good job to take care of the girls. To have happy children (and not just because they get a new cell phone (they are really not materialistic)). To feel good about myself and to be a positive influence. Like I said 2 weeks ago, I just want to be a "good and faithful servant."