Where did my spark go?

Dear Single Mama,

Why does everyone seem so confident when I feel crushed under the weight of my insecurities? Why does it feel like everyone else around me has it all figured out when I feel like so lost? I was never overly confident but there has certainly never been a time when I felt this low. I so desperately want to curl up into a ball and hide away from the world. I don’t want to deal with the reality that is me. I don’t want to consider that the girl in the mirror may never again look the way she once did. If I don’t try, then I can pretend that if I did, I would once again look like my former self. If I try, then it may transpire, that even the best version of me now, is more tired, more haggard, older and saggier than the me I want to go back to. I don’t know how to date as the new me. I don’t know how to navigate the world as this person and yet I have been this person for such a long time. I have just been avoiding the world. I want to go back. I want to return and be seen. I am sick of hiding away. I am so afraid all the time. Afraid to speak up. My instinct is to hide away but I am so sick of hiding away. I want to rejoin the world. The only thing holding me back is me and that voice in my head and that fear in my heart. My biggest regret is that I have spent so long feeling this way. That I let myself feel like this for so long. My light has been dimmed and I just accepted it. I so badly want to shine bright again. But how?