Good Conquers Evil... Every Single Time

I sure do like living in this little town. Most days. But there are times, the smallness of this place feels like it's choking me to death. Smothering the very life out of me.  I wasn't used to having my every move monitored and reported. To someone. Anyone. I wasn't accustomed to my life being of such interest to people who didn't even know me.

I moved here as a single parent/mother of two boys in 1998. I had been working here for two days out of every week for almost five years prior. I knew the lay of the land so to speak. I knew it was a small town. But just how uniquely intertwined everyone seemed to be with everyone else here, I had no clue. How this person would be related to that person from this cousin on his Mama's side.  How if you have an opinion about a person, you'd better be prepared to fight five others who may be listening. Because, some how, some way, somebody married somebodies sister, who has a brother, who used to be married to the child of the person you are talking about.

Not that anyone should be talking about anyone. And I guess that is my point here today. So, back to when I moved here, in fact before I moved here, people knew where I was going to live before I packed the first bag. Before I packed the front of the U-Haul truck. People that worked at the same place I did, who I didn't even know their names, knew where me and my boys were going to live. I learned quick, outsiders were a thing for the microscope to examine. And a single woman, with two small kids, living alone, in a big white house, with a good job? Forget about it.  She would be fresh meat for weeks and months to come.

People knew what I did on the weekends. They knew if I had company. How many cars were there, and how long people stayed. When I dated, they knew how long my dates stayed and if they stayed over. And when I began to date one of the few single men in town, who had no kids, and a good job? Whew wee...was I ever a target then. A target for every single woman with a pile of kids, who didn't want to work and wanted to be taken care of....by a good man. Why did the new stranger get his attention when they couldn't? Why would he be dating her, what was wrong with them? They were here first. None of this is made up, or thought up in my head, it was all conversation that would make it's way back to me. And should you think any of those women would care that he was dating someone else? That it would stop them, from approaching your man as if you did not exist? Uh no. They had no shame, no morals, no God given good sense. Least of all, respect for themselves.

Crazy talk and crazy conversations from pitiful, desperate women who needed to get up off their behinds and make a living for themselves and the kids they brought into this world. And quit worrying about me, or trying to find and trap a man, into taking care of them.

As much as I hated living out on that desolate highway sometimes, where me and my family stuck out like a sore thumb, for all to see and observe. It was private. Private in the way that I had no neighbors fighting over boundary lines. No trashy neighbors, slaughtering my bushes as if they thought they belonged to them. I have worked hard all of my life. I have worked for everything I have. No regrets.

This week, I have missed my old white house on Hwy 65 more than I ever have before. I think I would trade. I would rather have people who don't know me, talking about me, than nasty neighbors who do know me, doing things to hurt me. Or doing things to spite me and make me angry. Because I have something they don't have..peace. Peace of mind and peace of heart. Goodness always wins. Right will always be right, even if you have to wait a little while to see the results. I can lay my head down on my pillow at night and have no regrets or shame. Can you?

copyright © 2011 Michelle Mount Mims