Having coffee the other day with my parents, I had a meltdown.

CNN ran the story of a young, middle-class family. Two kids. Two working parents. Lovely home. Then the husband and wife lost their jobs. Difficulties arose. The man walked out, leaving the woman alone with an adjustable rate mortgage that had just hit $2500/month and no income. No health coverage. She couldn't afford a minimum-wage job because it wouldn't even cover day care for the kids.

Her mother rented out her home and moved in to help with expenses. They couldn't get food stamps because she owns a home. So now, the guy's off starting his life over, making no contribution at all, and the woman is alone, struggling to keep the house and feed her kids and find a real job.

As I watched and listened, a stranger took over my body. She breathed hard and fast. She talked loud and didn't care how she sounded.

We, the stranger and I, turned to my dad and said, "This is why, Dad. This is why it matters that Bill Clinton screws around."

Dad's a diehard Clinton democrat. Not a fan of infidelity, but he doesn't think Bill's private life is relevant. And he doesn't understand why I don't admire Hilary for staying with him.

Using my voice, the stranger told Dad that when the leaders of a nation have bad morals, it's easier for the average person to have bad morals. It's easier for men to walk out on their families, easier for them to turn their backs on the women they promised to love, honor and cherish.

We raged. We raged. We raged about this unknown guy who left his wife holding the bag holding their lives and their futures and the trash he no longer carries to the curb on Saturday mornings.

I finally had to go to the salon. Halfway there, the stranger drifted through the driver's side vent and floated over to the walking trails in Burr Oak Woods, where she stubbed her toes kicking stones into trees.

Later that afternoon, I apologized to Dad for getting so carried away, and then spent two hours wondering where in the
world the rage came from. All this time, I've never spoken so out of turn. I thought...I really thought I'd turned it loose long ago.

No idea what to do with my the rest of my life. I think I mostly got married at 24 because it answered that question. I would be a wife. I would be a mother. I would be my husband's partner and we would build a life.

I walked, heel-toe, heel-toe, on that path for 16 years, until the day I was no longer a wife. For the next 14 years, I hauled ass down the path of being a mother. I'm still a mother, but one whose children no longer need daily care. A writer, sort of, but not really. A middle-aged woman who still has trouble speaking up for herself. One who once had a float in the parade and now sits on the curb, watching the bands march by.