First of all, I'm not diminishing the impact of this weekend. I was in foster care as a child & just found out. I can now recognize when my mother is doing unhealthy things & I have to learn how to deal with it without it controlling my life. But I found out some news last night that really puts things in perspective.

I've talked about this girl before. I'll call her M. She is a family friend who, at 13, found her father dead. Seven months later her mother married a man, & M & her little sister were thrown out. They went to live with another family friend. Anyway, after a lot of drama, M's little sister had 2 kids before she was 18 & I think she dropped out of high school. She won't admit it. M lived from home to home, dealt with cutting herself, got help, got into a school for troubled kids & graduated on time. I'm the one that gave her hope & supported her dreams while everyone else was dashing them & I think that made the difference. So anyway, M got married this past August. I've had one email from her since then, I've called her (because I moved back) but I didn't hear from her. All I heard was that she was living in an apartment with her husband & she had a day job. I was so proud of her but pissed that she blew me off.

I just found out last night that she left her husband after only 2 months, she wasn't talking to anyone, she quit her job & now she's involved with drugs again. Damn. I'm disappointed but not surprised, simply because I know the girl wasn't raised any better & she has no coping skills. She's got serious abandonment issues & I know she blames herself a lot for what's going on. All I'm going to do is email her & try to give her some words of encouragement. When she tries to get it together she works hard, but when things go wrong she panics & bails because she doesn't know better. It's really sad.

It puts my issues & problems in a different perspective, because I'm upset about something in the past. I'm not in the middle of a lot of turmoil like she is. It doesn't mean that my crap isn't substantial, but really, if I look at the present, life is good for the most part.

Now I have to go email her. Thanks for listening guys.