When I was little, the McCarthy days had just passed, and the "golden age"of "Camelot" was just beginning. They'd shucked off the dark fearfulness, and while the yellow and black air raid shelter signs could still be seen on a brick wall here and there, I never had to participate in a drill, never heard those sirens go off for real... I don't remember any of the Kennedy's being shot, or any of that brouhaha..

I remember picking blackberries, and getting chased out of the old man's yard when we went after his cultivated blackberries when the wild ones ran out. Snitching rhubarb and carrots from the old lady across the street, who caught me one day, and showed me how to make pie out of that rhubarb and the wild strawberries we'd find in the patch of meadow across from my house.

When I was 7, they walked on the moon. I grew up thinking that it was a "Great big, beautiful tomorrow", to paraphrase Mr. Disney... the world, no, the universe was wide open with possibilities!

Life kind of got in the way of that...

I was one of those kids that was taught that college was my "ticket". My dad was an immigrant, and saw education as a key to a way of life that had security. I loved school, the challenge of stretching my brain against new ideas. I still do. And if that were the sole point of going to college, then it would be worth it. But so many of us were taught that it was the pathway to a better job. That "job mentality" was hammered home in us.

We all thought that if we had the right pieces of paper, the world would all fall into place for us. Well, that's not what happened, exactly. And I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, it didn't quite work out the way I was told it would.

Family troubles didn't help much, and things got really weird for a while. By the end of my 18th year on this planet, I was effectively homeless, working three part-time jobs, and still hanging onto that "golden ticket" of school... In about a year, though, I was renting a house with the guy my dad actually had initially said that he liked. However since I was living with the guy "in sin", I was "shunned", by my dad, and that hurt. It also cut off any financial help for school, and I never did have any help from my parents for living expenses. Guess that's why I gotta laugh at the college kids next door...

Well, that sort of thing makes you grow up fast, and I can remember talking to Michael and we'd both laugh a bit at those friends of ours that seemed so much more immature than us. We had scorn for those that had all kinds of help from "mommy and daddy", and didn't have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, like we did. That's one way to get over the hurt, I guess... but it was true. Getting kicked hurt, but it made us a lot stronger than a lot of our peers.

By that time, all I can remember is the daily grind, the daily struggle to make enough money for the rent, to buy macaroni and cheese, to put gas in the car... ducking the arguments, the worry, even drinking to get sleep at night, or just walking around feeling like I was always going to cry... It seemed that everything was a struggle. The moments of being able to just look at the sky and smile were rare. You should see my poetry from the early and mid 80's, dark, dismal, and even some suicidal stuff... That's the point of view of someone who's only focus is scratching in the dirt searching desperately for pennies...

I have some wonderful friends, though. And one day, after a particularly interesting episode of the soap opera that was my life then, I was confronted by one of them. He asked my why, if I was so miserable, did I stay where I was? Why didn't I come out to where I had friends who loved me? I muttered something about a job, and a way to make a living, but the seed was planted...

Two years later, after Michael was long gone, and I was dating Eric, God sent me Nathaniel. Yep... that one night, that was all it took... and honestly, looking out my window today, I can't be sorry a bit...

This time around I took His gift with welcoming arms, although it was with a terribly fearful heart. Almost immediately, though, I was given the opportunity to find strength and resolve.

Almost immediately, I became informed that I was going to be a single mom... and I found that I didn't care.

Almost immediately I was informed that I was a fool, and that I "couldn't afford" a child... and I didn't care about that either.

Almost immediately I was told I was insane, I was told that I would end up broke and on welfare, I was told that I was making a selfish choice, that I should give the child up to adoption, so he could have two parents and a "nice home"... I really didn't care, and told them to shut the **** up...

What changed? I really don't know... honest... Maybe God touched me. I think at that point, that I'd taken the big step of releasing myself from a bad relationship, and I'd regained my hope. The hope that I'd had at 7years old, watching with complete awe as Apollo 11 took off. One step. A giant leap, yes, and I took one of my own, to get out of those chains of that relationship, and it was like that rocket took off again with me... towards that light shining on the horizon! I found that I was willing to trust that the Creator that could make the moon, and the whole darn universe, could probably take care of me, and my baby too... and it was wonderful!

Oh, I remember simpler times, with a fond nostalgia, and yes, times these days are very, very different, and sometimes not in a particularly nice way... but for me, that light is still shining on the horizon.

I've learned that most setbacks are only temporary, and the rest just seem to point you in a new direction that you never would have thought of anyway. I guess that's where the Hand of God comes into it... shoving me in the direction He wants me to go...

I'm not Pollyanna, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have consciously tried to learn from the soap opera that is my life, and have consciously tried to see the glass as half full. Just because things are different now, doesn't mean they're "bad". Think of all the wonderful things we have now, that didn't even exist when I was growing up! Nathaniel honestly doesn't believe me when I tell him that there were no button phones, no VCR's, no cable, no computers at home. Now, THAT is funny!

I guess, you just gotta learn how to look at things...

They say folks are so cynical now... and maybe a lot of them are, and that's so sad... I hope some day they trip and fall, really, I do! And when they roll over to get up, they realize that they are laying on soft grass, and looking up at a sparkling sky filled with jewels.