Afterall

I didn't grow up in some magical kingdom where everything was perfect.  We didn't have unlimited cash in hand.   My parents really weren't fancy people.  They met working in a B.F. Goodrich rubber factory where my mother's mother also worked.  Her father worked for an iron company.  My father's father was a mailman and his wife raised 9 children. My father eventually went on to be an Electrical Engineer for Consumer's Power, my mother a nurse's aid, a nurse and then she worked swing shifts in a salt factory.  She didn't work in the office, she worked on the factory floor, just like the men. 

My mom wanted nice, fancy things but, I guess she never wanted to spend the money to have them.  Because she never really bought much of any value. 

That said, my parents were pretty good people.  They raised us kids in the church, taught us to be clean, responsible, kind, considerate of others.  Now maybe that all happened by accident and maybe it was intentional, I'm not sure but regardless, here we are. 

My mother's daughters, all 5 of us, though very different, have always looked out for the little guy, helped the less fortunate, donate our time and our talents where needed.  We have always been quick to volunteer - most often without thinking!  We try very hard to help where we can, and do what we can.  

My mother's children are an extremely responsible, fiercely independent, strongly opinionated, overly determined, bunch.  We're an intelligent, well read, vastly experienced, loud bunch of givers!  

We're also a tough bunch to cross as we tend to hold our wrongs close, we have high expectations of ourselves and others.  When someone fails us, we're hard to forgive and harder to forget.   I truly pity the soul that dares try to take advantage of one of us or lies to us.  We generally sniff out a rat at 50 paces -and there is no turning back.  There is no saving yourself.   

But, when we love, we love with all that we have, all that we know and all that we can give.  We're unabashedly proud of our kids, and we are amazed by our spouses as they are often also our very best friends.  We also will not stand for anyone to take advantage of them in any way.

We're pretty quick to cut someone out when we have had enough.  But, please know by the time we have had enough, we have been stolen from, lied to, lied about, betrayed, talked about, and almost anything and everything in between and rather than hurt any more, we'll just leave you behind and go on with our lives.  You see, the pain of your betrayal is bigger than the pain of being without you. 

I'm not writing this as a threat.  I'm tired of being stabbed in the back, tired of sticking up for myself, really tired of being deceived and lied to.  You see, my momma taught me to be better than this, to not sit back and take this shit from anyone. I'm done.  I am my mother's daughter after all.