Every once in a while, M does something that’s really just not fair. Like purchase his own vice and refuse, though we have the money, to purchase mine. And mine’s cheaper!

I’ve never been particularly spoiled. No more than any other daddy’s-girl-turned-rebel, anyway. I mean, I got my way, a lot, with just about everything, but that was usually because I don’t really ask for much, and my way made the most sense. Or, at least, I made sure it appeared to. I rarely, if ever, approached anyone with an idea of what I wanted if I couldn’t produce a good reason for wanting it. Mostly because that was the only surefire way to get what I wanted. Especially once my sister was born.

See? I shoulda been a lawyer.

But there really is no good reason for wanting cigarettes.

I mean *I* think they’re good reasons! I like the way they taste. I like the way they smell. I like that they calm my nerves. I like that when I have a cigarette in my hand, I’m not searching for something to snack on. Hell, I even like the way smoke feels in my lungs. The only things I don’t like about cigarettes are the way they make me smell, and the potential health risk. But I know the risk, and I take it anyway, because I like to smoke. I mean, everybody dies some time, and that’s what body spray (perfume’s usually too strong for me), toothpaste and chewing gum are for.

I try to be polite about it. For a long time, I’d smoke outside so M didn’t have to sit in my secondhand smoke, until one day He decided He didn’t care. I try to avoid smoking around other people’s children unless they do, and even then I often won’t. When people who don’t smoke are visiting, I ask if my smoking will bother them, and if they say it will, I either don’t light up, or I go outside. In my own house! My mother always tries to be polite (my father… not so much) –even going so far as to stub out her cigarette and carry it home in her pocket if there isn’t a garbage can or ashtray around– and I pretty much followed in her footsteps in that area.

Minus the carrying a butt in my pocket part. Just… ew.

My life hasn’t been particularly fair. I was sold, for all intents and purposes, to my cousin and her husband (for nothing more sinister than adoption) as a toddler. Later, they conceived, and their bio-kid became their world. Convinced I was alone, I struck out into the world forging bonds with people I had no business knowing. And when that didn’t pan out (though I’m honestly not sure what I was looking for, there), I got even more self-destructive, and found myself in the middle of something no person should ever have to know about, much less participate in. And yet, I walked away a little scorched, but mostly intact, and have been steadily shaking it off ever since.

I kept the darkest parts from my family. They still don’t know what I’ve been through. That’s due, in part, to my mother calling me a liar when I told her I was raped. In the delivery room. Where I was being prepped for an emergency c-section for a baby that may have been the product of that rape (she wasn’t, thank god). And so, life continues to be unfair in the form of most of my family wholeheartedly believing I’m just completely nuts, and feeling sorry for me, but keeping me at arm’s length so my crazy doesn’t get on them.

I musta been some kinda rotten in a previous life.

But you know? Life not being fair? It’s really made me one hell of a strong person. I can handle pretty much anything you throw at me because I don’t just abstractly know it can be worse. It has been worse. I might fall apart initially, but then I tend to get mad, and forge ahead to prove, if only to myself, that I can do it. I might be a girl, and I might not have control over my own life, but I sure as fuck can do just as much as you can. Just give me the resources I need to learn how, and I’ll at least do it as well as you. Mental constraints be damned.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, life’s not fair. It’s not always fair to the old rich bastards who rule the world. It’s even less fair to the young poor single mother who barely rules her house. It’s not fair in the wild. It’s not fair anywhere.

And ya know, it’s okay to be irritated or pissed off over it. It’s okay to want to kick ass and take names. It’s okay to want to do something about it.

But… you really gotta know which battles to fight, and which ones to leave alone. I mean, it’s not the end of the world when M buys His vice, which I also imbibe in, and won’t buy mine, which He only likes when I’m wearing red lipstick. There are far worse things He could refuse me. Far more important things He could decide I’m not allowed to have. Like His love and companionship, or my writing jobs, or our friends, or our animals.

So yeah… I pout a little. I’ll even say a couple times that it’s shitty. But I try not to fight Him on it. Cause when compared to the rest of my life, not getting a pack of cigarettes when I want it really isn’t anything to blow up over. Life could be so much less fair.