translated experiences

I have been learning to savor the quiet moments in my life.  I still haven't mastered getting my behind out of bed earlier so that I can have time to read in the morning.  Last night as I was trying to keep my head from exploding over information overload from cost accounting.  I drove home from class with the radio off in silence.  I started to think about a reply my aunt put to one of my posts. 

When I speak of my brother and sister, they are my step brother and sister.  My adoptive father married his high school sweetheart.  Butch must have left their mother when my sister was anywhere from 5 to 7.  According to my sister they grew up in a household with a mother who was physically not there, my sister lived with friends and my brother just fended for himself.  I thought how these experiences translated differently between all of us.  I learned early that I had to stand on my own two feet (mostly because I picked men who were incapable of taking care of themselves not to mention anyone else).  My parents (mom and stepdad, who I call my father) told me that if I wanted a car, I better get a job.  My parents, grandparents, and Butch all gave me $700 a piece to help buy my first car.   That money paid for a set of tires, 6 months of insurance, and a down payment for a used car.  I had a car payment in high school.  I paid my own insurance.  I can remember once (when I was playing the "I am a helpless woman" card) my dad telling me that he wasn't always going to be around to help me take care of my car and I needed to learn how to put air in my own tires. 

That is a lesson that I have lived my life by and I don't understand women who play stupid and want someone else to do things for them.  Please, do not get me wrong, it is nice to have a man open the door for you, buy you dinner, and change your flat tire.......but there will come a day when there will be NO MAN to do these things for you and you will either open a bottle of whiskey as my sister has chosen to do or you will buckle up your boot straps and do it yourself. 

So, for all of the bashing that I have done to Butch.  I suppose that I am lucky that he left me to my own devices so that I would have no choice but to be independent.