Fontella Bass was a genius.

Last night was spent with 1 ear on a phone, 2 hands on a keyboard, & 1 heart in 1 throat. I was glued to my monitor from the moment I got home until the moment I was FINALLY allowed to exhale & shut down, shortly before 11pm. A bridge in a state I've never been to – where co-workers I've never met were PROBABLY driving across to get to their homes – collapsed. Happily, everyone from my company has been accounted for & the biggest thing they seemed to suffer from the collapse was inconvenience & shock at the incident happening at all.

For a few years, while my step-men were still young, we had an emergency plan - where we'd meet in case of a fire or earthquake, that kind of a thing. Eventually the designated empty parking lot became home to a business & by that point, the boys were grown & living elsewhere anyway.

I don't recall having an emergency plan while *I* was growing up. In spite of the fact that my parents home sits at the top of a hill that was, at that point, surrounded by open space & LOTS of grasses & trees, we never decided what to do in case of a fire. My dad was a firefighter – if we had a fire, he's swoop down, swing his cape to one side, the theme music would fade a notch or two while he would openly laugh at the fire, daring it to come any closer. It wouldn't, of course, afraid of his power – & all would be right with the world once again. We didn't worry about earthquakes either, but for a far more realistic reason. The first 10+ years of my life, my family spent weekends digging out underneath the house for what would become the "lower level garage". My parents home sits on a hill of solid rock, & no earthquake will have an effect on it, the walls that hold it up, nor the foundation that it sits upon – short of shaking the entire thing to the ground.

I'm now (for all practical purposes) a grown-up – & I have no emergency plan, no "what if" or "emergency contact" list. I don't know if that's a gut reaction of knowing that I really can't rely on the government to help out should the need arise – or if it's just my own special case of paranoia … "no, I'm NOT gonna share with you what's wrong – I'll deal by myself thankyouverymuch". I know that I'd *like* to think that I'll be strong enough to ask for help if I need it. I think that it takes FAR more guts to do that than to just power through solo on most things.

Nearly every little girl grows up with the notion of eventually being rescued by a strong, capable "prince". I just wonder what, exactly, they think they need to be rescued FROM? As for me, I'll tell you what – rescue me from me. Rescue me from taking on too much or biting off more than I can chew. Rescue me from being too proud to ask for help, or from being too hard on myself when I don't live up to my own expectations. Do those things and you'll have rescued me.

(Who is Fontella Bass? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWzWTqjW0_0&feature=related)