Everything but the glass slipper

I'm not going to lie: my life up to now has been pretty rough. From my abusive father eventually abandoning me, to being raised under the poverty line, to the various and sundry heartaches and disappointments I've suffered, I resigned myself to a difficult existence. But, like all fairy tales, one day it all changed. At the risk of being cliche' (which I often find that my life is) one day my Prince Charming rode up in his Harley, swept me off my high-heeled feet, and the rest is history.

So now, in the midst of our Happily Ever After, I am faced with some doubts. I’m still waiting for something terrible to happen or to wake up from this dream of an easy life that I’ve been having. What if the clock strikes twelve and it all goes back to crap? What if I find myself metaphorically stoking the fire in a soot-stained apron realizing that it was all my imagination?
Maybe A), God decides that once in a while we need a break from trials. Or B)maybe God prefers C and I am just blessed by association(like being popular by association, only with more perks). (In case you are wondering, the correct answer is B)

But, surely, I was born to struggle?

We have been blessed as newlyweds. My old roomate and good friend lamented of her marital financial situation while at my bridal shower, stating that her apartment was smaller than my living room and some nights they were lucky to get a good meal. Ironically, I had more money once I got married than before. C bailed me out of my college credit card follies, and we built up a savings account. My dismal income as a legal assistant at a law firm was augmented by a monthly contribution by his generous parents. Somehow the bills always got paid and we usually had a little left over for fun. For the first time in my life I have a new car.
Now, a year and a half later, we own our cars outright and have only one AMEX that we pay off monthly. We just bought a house and had enough money left over from our downpayment to remodel our house and add an addition.
This is in stark contrast to my childhood where I had to pay for my school field trips and was the only kid that got the brown bagged "Free Lunch" that the bus driver brought from the school cafeteria while the other kids brought Lunchables or -gasp!- bought food. The only new pair of jeans I remember getting were a $20 pair from JCPenny that I wore 4 out of 5 days of the week my freshman year in high school. (I didn't even know that most jeans cost more than 50$ until I got to college). Pretty much all my clothes were hand-me-downs. In seventh grade a malicious girl found out that my neighbors had given us a bag of clothing from their grandkids and spread it around school that I wore somebody's grandma's clothes. (Actually, it was the grandparents of a classmate of mine who were our neighbors, so inevitably some of the pieces must of been hers or her cousins'). We turned on the oven and left the door open in the winter for heat or had little space heaters in our rooms to keep us warm. One Christmas, my mom made our presents out of pieces of fabric she had and dollar store items. I remember sneaking peeks out of our front window to try to catch the women from the church delivering the donated presents from the members "anonymously" to our door on Christmas Eve. I remember wishing I were a chameleon and could blend into the rack of candy in the checkout aisle when my mom pulled out the brightly colored food stamps to pay for our groceries. I remember saving excess water to use to flush the toilet to save on the water bill. I remember worrying about the electricity bill when I was 8 and teaching my little sister to turn off all the lights when she left a room.

So now, in my cushy life, I cant help but feel its precariously balanced on the edge of a precipice. What if our luck runs out? What if I drag C down into my muddy pit of despair like Shrek in the swamp? Im just a big ball of optimisim!