From Folks Who've Never Been Happy

Momma's up to it again. Putting out her husband just to take him back. She told my father she wanted him to remarry her, build her a house. He said that would mean he couldn't retire next year. His way of saying "yes." But she took back the other one, the drinking one with herniated discs, because she doesn't know how to be happy without him.

Momma's never been happy. I called today and asked her as much, and she said "what is happiness"? I don't have an answer for her. Like her, I, too, am never satisfied. I don't know what having enough is because I'm from a place and a people who always had too make do with too little. My grandmother is a magician with canned soup and coupons, and the Mississippi legislature always shaves more off the budget. I was educated at over-crowded schools by under-qualified teachers and had a momma who worked second jobs waiting tables to buy expensive shoes for my wide feet. I know how to appreciate what I have, but I know everything I have is provisional; it comes at a cost for somebody, somewhere. Usually due to the sacrifice of someone who loves me but is too tired to tell me so. I don't want to be that way, but I don't know any other way to be.

Now, I'm job hunting and packing to move. Finished with school, I'm a capital A Adult, and I don't know what I'm doing. Yes, I can pay my bills on time and wash my dishes and clean behind my ears. I can stretch a dollar and make do on small portions. But I feel the pressure of my legacy bearing down on me, the weight of all my mother's unhappiness, and her mother's and her mother's, so strongly I might rupture.

I know I can make do. But I want to do more than that. But with this economy and all.

(I promise I'm not suicidal or sad. Just contemplative and scared. What if the Real World eats me alive?)