I probably shouldn't be angry, but I am...is that wrong?

I honestly had no intention of posting another entry today, but I received a text message while I was in my Litigation class tonight that irritated me and this I was irritated with myself for being irritated over the text... Do you ever have that happen?

Let me back up for a minute. I have a friend. My oldest friend in fact. We have known one another since we were 5 years old. We come from different yet similar families. Our lives have taken different yet similar paths. You get the idea... I think we both had the same opportunities in life...actually at times I think she had more opportunities as she had services available to her that I didn't have available to me. I'm not complaining mind you. My childhood was no day in the park, but it made me who I am today. Same as her.

Throughout the last 28 years we have lost touch more than once, but somehow we always made our way back to one another and rekindled our friendship. Back when my munchkin was born we met up again and discovered that we were both married the same year, in 2000, and she was pregnant with her first child and due approximately 5 months after my son was born. It was actually kind of ironic. I then filed for divorce from my hubby in 2004 and her and her hubby after having another baby in 2005 filed for divorce a couple years later.

As you well know, after filing for divorce from my man, I began raising my son on my own and in 2006 went on to law school. My friend, "A", began raising her two kids on her own after the divorce and talked about going to school. This is where our differences become quite apparent. Even before "A" and her hubby divorced they were on State assistance, so after the divorce she remained on State assistance. Actually, as I think back she was on State assistance in 2002 when she was pregnant with her son.

I'm not here to judge people who find themselves in a time of need and rely on what the State has to offer in the name of food stamps, rent assistance, payment of gas and electric bills, payment of daycare, and free college. Certainly in today's economy, living in the hardest hit State, there are a lot of people who never would have thought they would be on assistance are. I even knew if I would have been laid off in July that my first stop on my way home that day would be to sign up for benefits for my son so he would be okay while I doubled my load of classes and pushed my graduation date up to this coming May. So please do not take this post wrong and think this is an anti-welfare bitch, because it is not.

Back to tonight...as I try and figure out the last possible day I can mail in my next two bills so they don't hit before payday this week and worrying how I'm going to get the munchkin the two presents I want to buy him for Christmas since my financial aid from school dried up about 6 weeks early this semester...I get the following text message from "A": Just got a call, we got adopted 4 christmas! Normally I would be happy at the fact that her children will have a nice Christmas this year, but I just can't. I cannot bring myself to be okay with this, because this will be the 7th Christmas in a row that I've received the same message from her.

I know it probably makes me a horrible person, but I just cannot make myself happy over this turn of events. I don't want her children to be punished, but at what point do you tell yourself it is time to stop living off the State and time to get a job and/or go to school to get a career and provide your kids their own Christmas instead of relying on an agency or a donor to give your children the Christmas they deserve?

So tonight...as I sat through a class, exhausted, stressed, sacrificing my time with my son...my friend shares her good news that my donations to the Salvation Army are going to her children again this year to put a smile on their faces Christmas morning while my tax dollars paid to keep her gas and electric on again this month and secured another month's rent in their home. All while I wonder if I can put a smile on my son's face this Christmas morning alone...

And while I go to bed tonight after midnight to get up early tomorrow morning to go back to a job for 8 hours that makes me angry everyday dealing with the BS, I know "A" sits in her home, smoking her Marlboros while her boyfriend smokes his dope and they have marathon sex* so she can sleep the day away tomorrow while her kids are at school and the rest of us are working I ask myself what's wrong with this picture and how horrible of a friend am I wishing just once "A" wasn't adopted for Christmas....

*~~This is for a whole different post, which we shall call "There are boundaries for a reason y'all!"