"Story of a Girl" by Nine Days

You know its awe-inspiring how incredible God can be.

In my last post I discussed the problems my family was having in regards to moving. Well, on tuesday night of finals week I found out that we were good to go when it came to moving. I spent an entire night not sleeping; all I could think about was the unfortunate circumstances they were headed to despite a cushy job for my dad. Wednesday after my last final I called my dad to get more details when he told me that we/they, weren't moving.

I was so relieved. When I asked him why he said that not long after the confirmation call with the man he would be working under. He received word from his brother that he (my uncle) had been let go, and so had the man who had hired my father. My dad couldn't have phrased it any better, "There was no clearer sign for me not to move and take that job, than when the guy who was hiring me got sacked.

You see aparently the hospital, or its parent company, had been struggling for a while and the owner had finally decided to let go of several key members of the administration. Whether or not this was an attempt to bring in a new administration was not made clear. However my dad found clarity enough to stay.

We are still moving but it will be in Huntsville rather than Mobile. Thats one problem down.

I've still not learned that much more about reading signs with girls and I'm afraid that with most of them, even if I was to get up the nerve to ask them out, what am I to do? Ask them on a date where they drive and we have to go dutch because I have no money? Not my idea of a romantic evening, or for that matter an enjoyable one. Admittedly I've been on very few first dates in my life but in every situation I was able to drive my beater of a car to pick them up and pay the cost of the outing and down-grading really isn't in the cards so unless they find the caf or the student center, and a free friday movie in the Benson interesting then I'm pretty well boned.

Oh and let us not forget the impending trip I'm taking to Mobile this Saturday to visit with my mom and other family. I'm not looking forward to it. At least not as much as people seem to expect I should. I mean whenever I mention that I'm going to see her people, usually unfamiliar with the story surrounding this event, expect some level of exuberance; they are too often disappointed. Honestly my goal is to go the entire trip without arguing with her, which really just depends on how many times I can handle the lies she believes about what went down between her and us.

I'm worried for Liz, too. Not just with my mom, but all of it. In the last year or so, her mother left her, I went to school and then my grandmother quit on us, too, more for financial than personal reasons. If Liz walks out of all of this without abandonment issues I'll be amazed. Its hard for me to be around her knowing that she is stuck in all of this mess and in less than a month I'll be living a pretty decent life in a dorm with my friends. What kind of brother does that to his sister, seriously? A pretty shitty one. I mean I know that if I was here it wouldn't do her much better, but atleast she'd have someone to suffer the hardship with her. As it is she just has all the church people and her friends, most of whom have two effective parents and are fairly well off financially. I don't blame them for it, or hold it against them, but only arrogance or ignorance could convince someone in their position that they could understand what she is going through.

I'm the closest one to her situation and what did I do? I left. I left and when 300 someodd miles away to go to school. I haven't ever truly wanted for much in this life. Never have I so desperately for anything as I wish that I could help her. I wish I could protect her from the pain she feels, pain that I wouldn't wish on any enemy. The pain of hearing your mom's voice as she tells you she is leaving and moving away, to help herself, while you stay behind left to God knows what trials. My only wish the Christmas has been that she would have a good one, free from the pain and the stress that this world has chosen to deal to her.

I walked into her room tonight. Just to say goodnight and we got to talking about this and that what we got dad for christmas, and so on when in mid-sentence she dropped the phone in her hand and stared at me with pain in her eyes, tears welling up. She said, "I didn't get you anything." Tears came down her face at that realization. I tried to console her and let her know that I didn't want for anything in my life, and that she didn't owe me a thing, but she knew I had gotten her something, and guilt overtook her for a moment. I wish I could protect her from the pain that made her cry.

I don't know much about this world. I don't know a laserjet printer works, or how exactly you can burn information on to a disc. I don't understand how we can get such clear images of images as far away as the planets other stars. But one thing I do know is that I would give anything to see her happy, and I will hurt anyone who causes her pain. There isn't much in this world I can call my own. A dad, an estranged mother, and the mounds of trouble she has caused us, but the one thing I know more than anything is that I have a sister that I love dearly, one I would do anything for regardless of the cost to me. And I know that I hate that pained look on her face, it hurts me more than anything else in this world.

Those are the biggest things on my plate right now. The song of the day is "Story of a Girl" by Nine Days, because, "This is the story of a girl ,who cried a river and drowned the whole world, and while she looks so sad in photographs, I absolutely love her, when she smiles."

-matt

Ps (pardon the language, even with a broad vocabulary the four letter word is the most expressive)