I left my high school sweetheart after 18 years and five wonderful children...waaaay back in the mid-nineties. It hurt my chiidren, despite the fact that I continued to love the hell out of them, to show that, and to do whatever I needed to do to make ends meet. I owned hot dog stands. Six of them. In rented spaces in Home Depot stores. I would come home to my children long after the dinner hour, with plastic bags full of one dollar bills that would keep the electric bill paid. I tried to make them understand, They didn't. And when I fell in love with an imperfect man, they understood even less. Now, more than twenty years later (longer than I was ever married to their dad,who is a GREAT guy, and didn't deserve the divorce) the kids STILL don't understand that love is sometime found by imperfect people in imperfect ways. But guess what? After 20 years, I'm still an imperfect woman in love with an imperfect man. I wish the last two of my five wonderful children would forgive me for not being the perfect human being...but I won't smoke over it. I may have a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc...but I won't smoke. That wouldn't change a thing.
