Survivng All that Life Throws at You

My life story so far has been as non-descript and typical as any other forty-three year old wife, mother, and grandmother in a rural setting in the southern pines of Alabama. As many here before me have, I have borne the stigma of being a countrified commoner.

This is the life we throw ourselves into as a mule to the plow. This kind of life is simply called survival. There are crops to sow and harvest, and kids to feed and clothe, and you do this because it is the way your daily life is laid out before you, and more so because it is simply what is expected of you.

You can get to know more about me from the country songs blaring out from the radio. I am that country girl that married her country boy and raised her country bumpkins alongside the chickens, horses and cows. There were the heartaches, the drinking, the cheating, the divorces and the getting on with your life. The gist of getting on with my life for me, consisted of leaving the farm and learning to be an independent single mother of two, working just to survive.

As I stopped being subjected to and a subject of country songs, I found myself learning that who I thought I was and who people saw me as, were two totally different views. It was a long and daunting task I had to go through to find, and be comfortable with the real me.

Along the way, I was sheltered and steered through most of the gauntlet by my very best friend "the coffee drinking buddy," who eventually became my very best friend "the husband." Between the two of us we have gathered around us, grandchildren, kids and a diverse collection of dogs and cats.

I also know, that my life has many different layers of earthiness to it, I will always have a firm foundation to build upon in what ever I choose to do career wise. I may even now, start down several adventurous roads and turn back at a dead run for hearth and home, but at least I know failure is not a mortal wound; I will survive.

I still have a deep respect for the way of life I grew up on. I have a deeper respect for the people who continue on with that way of life. Simple country folk know that where and how you start out in life has no bearing at all on where you will end it all at.

They understand that the degree of hardships you may have to overcome later on, become easier to bear if you just accept who you are early enough in life. They know that the sons and daughters that have drifted on to other ways of living still remember their roots. This is the root of who we are, who I am.

I come from a farm where the clay is red, the sand is full of fire ants and stickers, and it is just as acceptable to drink from the "spigot" then a cup. If I find myself at the ripe old age of eighty, drinking from a spigot, then I will be happy and contented that my life came full circle, and non the less for the wear.