When you are the judged... To care or not to care and how do you move on from there?

Hello again my fellow bare feet peeps! I must admit since my last blog I have had more struggles than I thought I could handle. I have been put in situations where I just wanted to crawl in a hole and die, but did I? NO! I've done that before and it never works. Which brings me to talk about what happened when its me (or almost me) as the person being judged. I normally try not to dwell on the past but it intertwines with more recent events so just bare with me. :)

 Now for those of you who know me, know I usually don't care what people think of me. You know I've always said I'm not here on this earth to impress anyone but the big man. I'm here to be me! But I recently found out something new about myself. I'm the biggest momma bear this world has ever seen! I can become the worst of me when it comes to protecting my kids. Of course I have always thought that I would be there to protect my babies and stand up for them if I have to but until a little while back I had never been in a situation to have to actually do that. Saying I was put the test is a understatement but lets just go with that.

So I was put to the test! (In more ways than one! It must have been an exam!) I was put in a situation where I had to make a important decision fast. Turns out I made the wrong one and because of that my child was judged poorly! Things were said about them that the person didn't have a right to say. They read his book by the cover, if you understand what I'm saying. Gave him one chance, one day, just to give him a label no one deserves or wants to have. Every part of me wanted to lash out and scream and tell them how wrong they were but I didn't do it. What did I do? I apologized to them. I cried, and cried,... and cried,... and cried. I suddenly cared what someone else thought! Not of me but of what they thought of my son! I wanted to protect him! But I realized that I was the only one being effected by what the person had said. My son didn't hear the remarks and he never will! So I made myself get over it. The next day I had to face this person for what I thought would be the last time. I sucked up every bit of pride I had and did what I had to do thinking this would be the last time I would ever have to deal with or think about the situation again. Boy was I wrong!

My son and I began a new journey. Going to an event happy and excited to be experiencing "a first" with him I suddenly got stopped in my tracks. Someone else was there also happy and excited to be sharing "a first" with their loved one. Suddenly I started to feel all the same emotions from the past well up inside me. I wanted to run! I said a prayer and made myself stay and forget about the past. Running away wasn't going to solve or prove anything except that I'm a coward to face my fears. The fear of my son getting hurt! Which in reality was the fear of hearing bad comments or opinions about my son. (me getting hurt) Instead of hiding from it I told myself that this was a new day, a new experience! And maybe, just maybe I made a mistake in miss judging that person to think that we could never be okay again. I really didn't know them and they really didn't know me but what I do know is that we were both set on the same path for a while and hopefully we might learn something. To grow in our ability to accept others. Whether it is the ability to accept people for who they really are and not for what you thought they were or the ability to accept people for the mistakes they made and move on. After all, we are all on the same road of life.

My struggles did not end there. There is a lot more to come! I just didn't want you guys reading a chapter book in one post!  So until next time don't be afraid of getting those bare feet dirty! Just don't forget to clean them up! <3