So... i've been thinking of how my life has turned out and how it could have turned out. The big 3-0 approaches and i think i am happier than i had any right to expect to be. i have a man who loves me to bits, a home that is mine and is safe even if it is a bit of a dump. No one can take it from us we own it. We don't have much, but what we do have we got on our own and we don't owe anybody a damn thing. i haven't had to lay on my back for anyone in a damn long time and the man i'm with would never ask me to. To quote a man i admire, "Life is sweet." (Go read Buffalo.) But, i feel like i've been fortunate. What happens when you go down another path in your adult life? What happens when you feel like you don't deserve love and you run straight into the arms of a man who will profess it as he treats you like shit. You end up like my sister, Marcie. Marcie with the scars of her husband's fists and boots. Marcie who has lived the past four months without electricity because her husband's beer and drugs come before the bills. Marcie breaks my heart because she honestly thinks she deserves this treatment. Granddaddy broke something fine and proud and noble in Marcie, you can see it in pictures of her. Drugs took the rest. And, the man who came before her husband. He pimped her out for drugs. He wasn't a real pimp, a real player, but he still had Marcie down on her knees for profit. Its not a sunny feeling. So Marcie is on a path that to me looks a lot like hell. Tomorrow we'll look at Vanessa.
