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I must be going for a record, or something, writing this often. I got a Christmas card from my Grandma the other day. My dad's mom, I probably have never written about her before. I sent her a Christmas card a while ago and it was really neat to get one back. Everyone else in my family, if you sent them a Christmas card, they would feel obligated to write back. She wouldn't feel obligated but she sent me one anyway. It says "thanks for the nice card. See you on the 19th. Love, Grandma." And that just made my day.
Really, it doesn't take much. It occured to me today that I must think of "j.a." five times a day still. It's just fleeting, usually. Usually it's just a, "She would've liked that." ...but it's still a lot. I think of her everytime I see a "Cat Who" book by Lillian Jackson Braun. And everytime I see a blank journal book she would've liked. And everytime I hear an older Sarah McLachlan song (older=fumbling toward ecstacy)and everytime I hear any number of other songs that were "bad" songs. Lady in Red is the worst. But also Fields of Gold, Strong Enough, any song by Joshua Kadison, that awful "I said I loved you but I lied" Michael Bolton thing, it goes on and on and on. She'll be 18 January 7th. I don't even know what college she's going to. The last time I talked to her, she wanted to be an English major but she said her dad wouldn't pay for her to go to college unless she majored in something "useful." I don't know if I ever told you about her dad or not. He's the only person I hate. That English teacher, the one I told you about the other day who told my parents about me... she always used to say "Hate's a really strong word." ...we'd always answer with "It's a really strong feeling." and that's still the way I feel about him. I think that if that feeling hasn't faded by now, it probably won't. I can't even really tell you why, because if I start to I'll have to smash something. Just trust me that it's justified. That's no good, is it? ...I have to tell you. Some of it. He's a doctor who thinks he knows everything. He has to be the boss of the family... his wife doesn't work because she needs to take care of the house for him. He bullies his kids to an enormous degree. By the time I really met "j.a." when we were 11 or so, she had already saved up $200 "for fun stuff when I go to college" because she had been taught to be so concerned about money. She had to get braces toward the end of 8th grade, and they always made her feel so guilty about it. If she asked to do anything, they pointed out how much money they were spending on her teeth. They made her calculate exactly what it was going to cost, just so she'd know. So she'd feel grateful. If "j.a." ever talked back, even just a little bit, he blew up. Three times in the two years we were close, he disowned her. Once it was because he yelled her name up the stairs and she yelled back "what?" with the wrong tone. He went off for two hours (I'm told... I wasn't there but I have no reason to suspect it was a lie from all the stuff I was there for.) ...telling her he wasn't going to pay for her to go to college, that he'd give her college money to her brothers, that she was ungrateful and the minute she graduated high school she'd be on her own with no money whatsoever. Then he went downstairs and raged at her mom, while j.a. sat on the stairs and listened. He called her a bitch several times that night. And this happened on a pretty regular basis. A few months later, she called the suicide crisis line. She didn't know that they have to get you to a hospital if you call and say "I want to kill myself." She got scared and hung up, and two police cars were at her house a few minutes later. Her dad answered the door in his underwear, holding a gun. Once he figured out what was going on, and realized he had to let her go, he told her over and over how she had disgraced the family and yelled at her. He doesn't believe in psychiatry. The police drove her to the same ER where her dad works, and she was seen by his best friend, who knew dad's feelings and barely even talked to her. The whole incident was my fault, in her dad's view, and she wasn't allowed to speak to me again after that. She got around it until a few days later when she admitted she thought she was gay. Then he went to the school and told the principal to change my schedule. He wouldn't (he's smart... my mom would've been in there in an instant. I would've been out of the school even sooner) ...so they changed hers so she would never see me. Somewhere in there, I called cps and asked them if they could make her parents take her to a therapist. She was 14 years old, 5'5", and weighed between 85-90 pounds. She made herself throw up on a regular basis, she cut herself, she wrote about people killing themselves all the time. Her parents knew all of that but the throwing up part, and they didn't do anything. child protective services did make her go to a therapist, but once they saw she was going they closed the case and the minute they did they made her stop going. They made her feel ashamed all the time. That's all. She wasn't allowed to speak up for herself if something was unfair, she just had to take it. And I still hate her dad for doing that to her. And her mom for going along with it, and sometimes making it even worse. (Her mom used to lean on her too much. She'd go in j.a.'s room and cry about how she wasn't in love with j.a.'s dad anymore.) Anyway. I don't remember how I got on the topic at all. The point just is that I hate him and I think it's very justified. Hold on, let me scroll up and see what the original point was. Oh yeah. I don't know what college she's going to, or if she's going to stand up for herself and say, "I can't be what you want me to be for my whole life." ...my guess is that she won't. She's too practical. If she ever says that, it won't be until after she has a college degree. I can't even imagine having that degree of dependence on someone. I know that right now, I can take care of myself. If I needed to, I could pay for college myself. I could do it on my own. I don't think she could. And I don't think I could take knowing I'm dependent on someone else. In that huge group project we just did, one of the people in my group was like that. She kept saying, "what should I do?" "what do you want me to do?" ...and it doesn't work like that. We all have our own work to do, we don't have time to stop and tell you what to do. You need to figure out what needs doing and do it. That's all. It was just crazy. Whenever I did tell her what to do, she'd keep asking how to do it, and saying, "you might want to check this, I might not be doing it right..." ...and she drove me absolutely crazy. I guess needy people get on my nerves. there's a girl who lives upstairs who I never really thought I got along with much, because she tends to act like she knows everything, when she really has no clue what she's talking about. (Like when she would not believe me that you need 15 credits every semester in order to graduate in 4 years.) And it's kind of funny, in a way, that she annoys me, because I know I am a lot like that. I know I act like a know-it-all. But anyway, I got to talking to her today and it was really neat to see that we have more in common than just that. We were both studying in the study lounge and we started talking and we're both just amazed how little people study. We both feel like the school work is the reason we're here, not to sit in our rooms talking on the phone and watching TV. I'm done with all the assignments I need to do for the rest of the semester. Now it's just finals. My hardest one is Monday morning, 8-10am. Tests like that mentally exhaust me. I always feel like I need to go to sleep right afterwards, or at least collapse in front of the TV. Instead, at 10:30am I have to go take another 2-hour final. The only good news is that after that I don't have anything until 4:30 the next day. I am the only person I know who has a final during finals week in every single class. Which means I have five major tests that week, the lowest one is worth 20% of my grade, most of them are worth about 25%. I'm already stressed out. |