In the jail, only three women came to bead class. One, the lifer, had news. She's out in two weeks. This is very good news. She's been in for nine months--the longest during my tenure there. If she had known someone with money who could've bonded her out, she would have been on the street months ago. Her mother and stepfather both with heart problems, three boisterous little kids, herself on disability because of her struggle with bipolar disorder, her missing ex who stole her truck around Christmas when he took off, she's taught us all about living with some kind of grace under fire. It hasn't been easy for her. Yesterday she spoke of the difference between being twenty years old and twenty nine years old. When you're twenty years old and your husband knocks you around, you bounce back right away from the injuries, she said. When you're twenty nine, in an older body, you don't bounce back so good. I've been thinking on that one for the past day.