December 2, 2001
Repossessed Wishes
20 days, but so late we're going to say 19.
Today was horrible. Justin and his personal problems ran me back to my bed at twelve-thirty, and I was roused only when Ryan called me an hour later.
I spent a soft-spoken forty minutes on the phone with him, and cried profusely afterwards as he ended the conversation with "I'll see you in 20 days."
He is counting, too.
And then this afternoon, when Mom and Dad send Justin out to move the car so Dad can pull his work truck out of the drive, Justin comes back in.
His words?
"Um, where's the car?"
Mom and Dad go outside to investigate. I follow. It's not there. It's not anywhere. Dad immediately begins interrogating Mom on when she made the last payment, I wonder how we couldn't have heard it being towed away?
I ask Dad when we get back into the house if it maybe could've been stolen.
His words?
"We're not that lucky."
And it's true. We'd all love the car to be stolen. Just the same as we've been wishing for about two months that we'll get in a minor accident at the fault of someone else so we can get rid of it.
Well, we did get rid of it. It got fucking repossessed. Welcome to life in the Black family. Those fucking bastards took it in the middle of the night. So now we have no car. And we can't get it back unless we buy it back. With our obvious surplus of cash seeing as...
a) We never have any money
2) It's December, hence Christmas
c) I'm starting school next month
So Dad says to me that I might have to help. And I know I don't have a choice, and I know I would've offered anyway, but dammit. Mom already owes me about three hundred dollars for Justin's doctor bills and I've never saved money like I have all autumn. I have enough for my tuition. And I was so excited about just paying it up front and not worrying. And now I'll have to pay it in payments. And continue to work my ass off.
I'm sighing again.
But today is my anniversary. And I will not be sad anymore. And I will not cry anymore. Because I think about all the shit I have been through, and how many times unbelievable, unrealistic fire-and-brimstone shit has happened to my family, and how we are only stronger for it. And I think, in ten years when I have graduated from school that I struggled to pay for and I have a wonderful job and a wonderful husband and a wonderful house, I will have good stories. And my kids will know where they have come from. And they'll also never ever be there.
I've stopped sighing. Because things can only stay so bad for so long. Not even for my ever-cursed parents.
One day I'll lift that curse.
astera at 10:37 p.m.