So I didn’t blog about this earlier, but I went home to my parents’ on Sunday to do laundry. My youngest brother has taken to making homemade pizza for dinner every Sunday, and I can’t ever make it because I had to study every Sunday and now that’s they only day I can work. It was me, my brothers, their girls, my mom, my dad, and our foster grandchild. Yes, my parents have a foster grandchild because they are good people.

     I cried when I left home. I don’t know why. I had so much fun, I missed my brothers, I am finally, finally getting along with my mother, and my dad was so happy I passed critical care. I love them, and I was crying because I missed them already, because I love them so much, and because it hit me how much time I wasted being stupid and miserable. Missing family vacations because I couldn’t stand my mother, fighting with my dad in the mornings before school, and locking myself in my room and avoiding my brothers.

     I just got off the phone not too long ago with my mom and completely lost my shit, burst into tears because I’m so stressed since my loan check isn’t here yet and I don’t sign the other one til next week. I’m nervous about meeting with my boss on Saturday because I’m convinced he’s not going to offer me a job and that I won’t get a sign on bonus before December (in which case I won’t be able to afford anything because transitions is going to take up more time that I thought which means I can’t work), and I broke down and ended up apologizing to my mother for everything I ever did to her when she offered to give me a check equal to most of my loan check tonight, provided I pay her all of it back in two weeks when the other one comes.

     I cried and apologized for fighting with her my whole life, for taking her for granted. I told her she shouldn’t be helping me as much as she is because I wouldn’t be if I were her, and I told her I was very sorry I had cost her this much time and money. I said things I never thought I’d be able to tell her in any form, I always thought it would come from me as a card or something, never something from my mouth to her ears. I have realized in the past year and three months since I’ve been away from that house what I really have there, what I cherish in my family, and I’m so glad I figured it out rather than waste more time thinking I knew everything and I didn’t need anyone.

     My mom’s told me since I was little that friends may come and go, but that my brothers, herself, and my father are the only people I’ll ever really have. And she’s right. I mean, I love my friends, but at the end of the day, they’re my blood. They know every bad thing about me and love me anyway, and no one makes me feel more at home or more like myself than those four people.

     I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m crying, but in a good way. I’m such a sap.

     I’m feeling better. Exhausted, but better. For now.

     My mom called me today and is apparently afraid I’m going to lose my mind. She suggested I go to the doctor and get on an antianxiety medication, which may not be a bad idea. Perhaps this was because I broke down while talking to her on the phone two days in a row. She told me today that she doesn’t want me to worry about money, so she’ll cover whatever I need her to until I get my loan check if I pay her back in November when I get my next disbursement. Which was fine with me.

     “You don’t need to worry about everything. You just need to get through this. And you can. So I’m going to so whatever I can to help you. Your father wants to talk to you.”

     After not crying for about twenty hours in a row, a record for the past few days, my dad gets on the phone and the second I hear his voice, I started crying. The last thing on earth I want to do is disappoint my father. Not that he made me feel that I am, but just knowing that he’s worried about me broke my heart. My family’s not one that is very emotional, the only member of my immediate family I tell I love is my youngest brother. So when my dad starts to tell me that he’s willing to help however he can, that he’s proud of me and knows I can make it though this… well, it made me lose it again.

     It’s amazing how much better crying can make you feel. I don’t know if it’s just that I let everything out or if it stimulates endorphin release, but I feel a lot less stressed right now. I know what I have to do, I have to suck it up and study my ass off, keep my head clear when I’m taking the test, and stop going out. It’s only four weeks. I can handle four weeks. Maybe.

     All in all, the highlight of the week is that, as of Friday, I’m halfway done with this semester. And even though there’s nothing to look forward to day by day, there’s still a light at the end of the tunnel.

     Soon. Soon all will be heading in an uphill direction instead of a downward spiral.

     “Did you hear about the whole security deposit yet?”

     “No! Nothing. I’m not sure what to do.”

     “Well, I’d say if you don’t get a response, let it go. Unless you want to fight for your money, then you’ll have to call or write another letter.”

     “Yeah, that’s what I figure. A letter’s better, it’s like solid evidence. Like a drunk text that won’t go away.”

      “Ha. Yeah, exactly. I’ll help you write it if you want.”

     “Ok, thanks.”

     “But only if you end it with ‘You’re a cock sucker’.”

     “Will do.”

     When I was about eleven years old, I hated my brother, Fro. He’s always been the favorite, which is odd because he’s the middle child, and when we were little, we pulled each other’s hair and even got into a fist fight across the street once. While I acted like a third parent to my youngest brother, Jer, with Fro, well, we just never really tired when we were young.

     If Fro was the prince of the family, I was the black sheep. At first, I fought it, but as I grew older, I learned to embrace it. It almost became expected that I would mess up, but the thing I always pointed out to my mother was that my mistakes were the mistakes that normal people made. I wrecked my dad’s truck, I couldn’t decide on what college to go to, I took it out on my parents when my first boyfriend and I broke up, and I didn’t get a job in the field I received my degrees in. I wasn’t drinking at parties in high school, I didn’t experiment with drugs in college, and when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, I was going to Bible study.

     While all this was going on, Fro was graduating from Duquesne and landing a decent job months after he graduated. Jer was going to Pitt Main as a senior in high school and figured out that he could graduate from college at age twenty. I was starting school again after already putting in almost five years and still trying to convince my parents that I was never getting back together with the Colonel.

     Since everything with my family relationships has drastically changed so much in the past year, I’m seeing that I am very comfortable with the role I’ve taken in my family. My mom gives us advice that we need to hear, even if we don’t want to hear it. My dad continues to be my hero, the man who is capable of fixing anything and who has never made me feel like I’ve been wrong about anything I’ve done. Jer has become the glue that holds our family together, the one who greets me and my mom with a big hug everytime he sees us, the one who tells me he loves me the most, and the one I can go to when I want to know what my parents are really saying about me. And Fro. Well, we haven’t gotten to hugging and verbal ‘I love you’s, but sometime over the past year, Fro and I stopped fighting, stopped competing, and started being friends. I know he’ll never understand why I didn’t use my degrees (yet), but Fro’s got this way of looking at the world that is slightly different from mine, this knack of seeing exactly how to get exactly where he wants to go. I’ve found my brothers are starting to give me the same things I get from my parents, Fro will give me a swift kick in the ass when I need it and Jer, well, Jer will hug me when I cry and say something profound, make me feel like he’s seven years older than me instead of the other way around.

     Writing that last entry gave me an idea, so I started another blog.

     Awhile back, I was talking to my youngest brother about how much I want to write a book. I jokingly said “I should write about the shit that happens in our family. God knows that’s entertaining enough.”

     Surprisingly, he thought it was a good idea. Since I got in this big family mood today, I decided to start collecting my thoughts about my family somewhere. I find that I’m a lazy writer if no one is reading it, so I decided the best thing to do would be to post my family’s dirty laundry all over the internet.

     Go, read, here.