Once upon a time, I was going to be a writer. So, my Father disallowed me to go to a business college downtown because he did not want me travelling to downtown Kansas City by myself (now that I'm an adult, I know this is not a dangerous place to go - Dad had just never been there so he did not know). Then, my Mother threw out her nineteen year old's birth control pills because I didn't need to do "that." All friends off to college, a future of laboring at Brown's Chicken - I did what most poor uneducated white girls already anorexic, bulimic, drinking and partying, depressed and looking for love to save her and get her out of her parent's house might do - I got pregnant.

Daddy demanded the shot gun wedding (yawn) to a one-night stand I had met in a bar (aka complete stranger), and working to support him and one child lasted four years. In the mean time, I was able to smoke a lot of dope, try some hallucinegetics, and continue with the anorexia and bulemia, meet some really decadent people (drug dealers, ex-hookers), and be a really terribly selfish Mother - leaving my little girl with my Mom for long periods of time to get her away from my sleazy lifestyle and avoid paying for child care because mostly it was me holding down the full time job - the stranger I had married being more into smoking dope than working or anything else.

Well, that is just a bit of this saga. It didn't improve after the second marriage and another innocent concieved - and it was one hard lesson. By age of 30, I was enrolled in college, encouraged by a girl friend we had moved in with. I put my head in my books, my job to support my kids, and my kids and quit looking for anyone else to save me. I got the BA in English and the kids have grown, one with kids of her own, doing considerally well despite the start received in life.

Now I am left with Me - a 3rd husband who has values and is not abusive. But since the empty nest syndrome, I am still searching for a place in this world. I know now it is up to me. The fifty's are not fun, with the hot flashes, and the recent death of my Mother after leaving an excellent job to take two years to care for her. Finding a job with meaning and substantial pay at age 50 in this economy - will it happen?

To be continued...