Little Girl from Texas
Friday, February 9th, 2007Kids, work and life kept me blissfully ignorant of Anna Nicole Smith until her legal battles with her 90-year-old late husband’s estate hit the front pages.
Never short on self-righteousness, I skimmed the “facts” and slam-dunked my conclusions about her and her life.
And on with my life. You know. Real life.
But she kept showing up. And then one evening, there she was. Her own reality show. Oh, for god’s sake. What won’t they use as fodder for a tv show?
That damn tv show reached out, grabbed me and held on. Or maybe it was this young woman with a sadness beneath the candy apple lip gloss.
And so I kept watching. Week after week. Embarrassed to admit I was a closet watcher.
And in this woman with the candy apple lip gloss, I sensed compassion and genuineness, masked by a search for acceptance at any cost.
Anna Nicole was used and manipulated, and, many will say, did her share of using and manipulating. But she never lost her soul, as if any of us can. She never lost the core of who she was.
For all her mistakes - Lord knows we make a few from time to time - she was always a little girl from Texas with dreams and a heart just as big.
And she wanted what we all long for - to love and to be loved not for what we’ve done or what we have - but simply for who we are.