Travel Log 12-1: 30 Days of Truth Day 3

Day 03 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
   
      For me the answer that has the most meaning would be that I need to forgive myself for being selfish, or what I see as selfish.
     I can say with complete integrety and depth of meaning that I have abandonment issues. MASSIVE abandonment issues. How this ties into this post you'll see in just a moment.
    My 2 older children were from a previous (extreemly failed, trust me) relationship and are not biologically my husband's. That relationship broke down shortly after my oldest had to have heart surgery at 9 months old and before my daughter was born but was on the way. The court battles for my oldest and, as then, unborn daughter began almost immediately. My ex's family was vindictive and controlling to an absurd degree. My entire family was dragged through the mud, police were unleashed upon our household almost weekly, in summary it was a nightmare. 
    The end result was that we would split custody 50/50. One week with me, one week with them. Now they live over 3 hours away and so I had absolutely no way to check on the kids and they refused to answer the phone when I called.  
   My son started going when he was just over a year, and my daughter when she was 3 months old. 
   As you can imagine this had my abandonment issues rearing their heads pretty quick. And I ran and hid. I stopped bonding with my children as closely as I could. I went to school. I socialized.
   Don't get me wrong, I was there. I loved them and held them. Took care of them when they were sick, but was I as close to them as I could have been? No. I kept that one careful step back because letting them go to their father broke me apart every time. Every time after I let them go I would be huddled in the corner crying for hours( I know there are thousands of moms who face the same thing all the time with a lot more grace and courage, but those are things I'm working on learning and had no grasp of 9 years ago).
    Now I'm trying to rebuild that bond that I let slip away years ago. They don't go to their father's as often anymore (for various reasons), and we're slowly but surely getting to where we should be.
   But the loss of that time will always be, to me, a supreme act of selfishness that I can never make up for but must learn how to forgive.