"Well, it beats using it all on having a tumor removed like last year."
Bad news comes in threes, when it rains it pours, you take the good with the bad, etc.... It seems to me that life is seldom in balance of good and bad at one point in time. Like there are good stretches and bad stretches, and if you are lucky they average out in the long run. I made the joke to my sister that all the upcoming good things in my life (a trip to Germany, a trip to Disney World, and getting a new car) are the upswing from the last two years, which was a montage of "getting a tumor carved out and being dumped a whole lot". Ok, not a whole lot, but the only times it has happened to me were remarkably close together.
Now I feel almost ashamed of myself for all the happy, fun, exciting things on the horizon. It feels like I did not earn them, which honestly is largely true. So much in life is circumstantial and beyond my control. It wasn't my idea for my sister to move to an exotic location, fall in love there, and plan a wonderful trip for the rest of the family surrounding her wedding. It wasn't my idea for the thought of her starting a family to launch my mom into a desperate ploy to be sure we go on an American vacation before babies anchor my sister in Germany even more. And my mom didn't have to let me live with her and accrue a down payment that will allow my first non-hand-me-down car to possibly be my dream car.
What it comes down to is that I am incredibly blessed. There is not a great number of people in my life, but the people in my life are great. Yes, I am kind of coasting on the coat tails of those more ambitious than me, but we all play our own little role, and who knows what one I might have to play in the future.
In the meantime, I try to ease my guilt by being more responsible around my mom's house. I sleep downstairs on the couch so her old dog, who is at risk of falling off her bed to his death, can safely sleep with me there and know he has company. I am trying harder at work, an incredibly frustrating effort since I still feel like I have no damned idea what I'm doing. And I'm trying to be a more proactive friend, reaching out first instead of childishly wondering why so-and-so hasn't been texting me.
It's all very silly... I can't retroactively earn the good things coming my way, and this is all stuff that I should have been doing anyway. But if my broken child-logic makes me be less of a drain on the people who reward me everyday, I think it's still a good thing.
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