Poppy

Without A Trace
Poppy M.
I couldn’t come up with a title for this one as I sat here watching the show.  I knew what I was going to write and she ties into that.
Caneyville, Spring Lick, Do Stop…  Only one of those is probably on your map.  Only one has a grocery and a bank and a truck line.  And its population is something like 500.  The others exist. 
We all know the story of the small town girl who is poor and wants out and is willing to do almost anything to get out.  The one I knew managed to get all the way to Hawaii.  For a few years.  I never thought I was desperate to get out.  I probably wasn’t to get out of the town, but the poverty, yeah, probably.  Never wanted to be rich, but I’ve come to realize that I want the ability to make my own choices and if that requires money then so be it.
I have a new boss.  Very likable guy.  Much easier to work for than a previous one, but I’ve come to realize that in some cases that is a weakness and could actually be a downfall.
I think that I maybe was shielded from, for lack of a better word, ruthlessness for a long time both personally and professionally.  So, I think maybe was my mother.  And it can break you to have that shield shattered at the wrong time.
I still can’t decide whether I was lucky or unlucky to have that shield in place for so long.  In some ways I feel that it allowed me to live without being shattered, maybe until I was ready to face some of what was on the other side, but the downside of that is that you aren’t really living while that shield is in place.  You exist.  I’ve tried to shield my daughter so far in her live from some harsh realities.  I hope that shield hasn’t been too broad and that I will know when the time is right to replace it with a smaller and smaller one as time goes by.
Time will tell.  But I do believe I maybe have sold her short a little bit.  The one time I took her to a thearapist after I suspected something had been done to her while in the care of another person he came back to me and said that either nothing had happened or she was so well adjusted that she just blew it off like water off a duck.  I’m not sure that that’s entirely true, but she’s a sweet, tender, tough little girl who will not be a little girl much longer.  And maybe that’s the hardest part to deal with of all.

Onward, upward…