Can't Buy Love

At the moment I am very disenfranchised by the idea of family. Everyday the list of things I believe in grows shorter and familial love has joined the ranks with hopes, dreams, romance, and faith. My family is one big melting pot of falling apart and try as I might there is no glue strong enough to bring us together or to hold us together and I guess that's just the way life goes. My sister has willingly avoided being close to anyone in our family while basking in the glory of well-to-do inlaws. And she doesn't have to worry because her love is bought and paid for and I'm sure she is self-assured that she has bought and paid for our love and can toss us to the wayside whenever the bigger fish comes up to be fried.

I'm 20 years old, not pregnant, in college, and I have a job. Both of my older sisters got pregnant in high school, float around between employment and unemployment and toss around the idea of going back to school but the best they've gone is part-time despite the fact that at each time neither of them was working. Yet my life seems to be the one thats lacking. They both have husbands, kids, some semblance of money and both get to say a big "forget you" to me or my mom whenever our requests don't suit them.

My little sister is a sixteen year high school dropout. She's sitting at an eighth grade education and it took her failing the seventh grade twice and the eighth grade once for her to get to that dropout status. Yet she's had steady boyfriends. Has a steady boyfriend now. Gets a two hundred dollar check every month from my dads social security for doing nothing. Her and her boyfriend live in an upstairs bedroom and neither of them work. But my life seems to be the one that's lacking.

I've spent a whole month waiting to see a bunch of my best friends in the whole world. People who have seen me at my worst, who were there for me before, during, and after. Who put up with me when I'm being a pain and love me when I'm not. I've been waiting to see them, counting down the days, excited beyond all reason. And the night before my sister decides to tell me via facebook that an outing with the in-laws is more important than the request her little sister had a whole month before the day. A facebook message when she knows I don't have internet access. Doesn't text me unti maybe an hour before when it's far past impossible to get a ride to see my best friend whom I haven't seen in six months because she's been abroad. Whom I won't get to see until September because we both work and live an hour and a half away from each other. A whole day I could have spent with a whole bunch of my friends wasted because I couldn't buy my sisters love.

I guess love costs a day at Hersheypark and an evening out.

Wish I was that rich.

My chest really hurts right now so I'm either heartbroken or having a heart attack. I'll send you a note either way; one just might be from heaven.

Patchwork Prayers