Back to the Start.

I had a good day today, stayed inside, made and wrapped things, cleaned, and avoided spending money. I even rewatched FOTC episodes again while I was doing this.

I ate a yummy dinner that filled me up, and which, again, I did not have to spend money on.

And then I started to make a list of things I will have to spend money on, so that I can bank my funds properly to the right places.

So I go online to check my balances.

In one tab, my bank account, in another tab, my Hotmail.

My email loaded faster than the bank account, and I saw that I had a few messages from my sisters, back and forth, talking about what we were to get my parents for Christmas.

Now, don't get me wrong, I acknowledge that it's the right thing to get my parents gifts.

We also tend to all pool our money together, but at Christmas time, my oldest sisters insist on getting really really really good gifts for them, and the older you are in line, the more you pay.

So, that means I'm going to be paying hella lot of money for these six gifts.

Apparently we need three for each parent.

Don't think I'm being cheap. But since having my (taxed) salary cut by 2/3's, discovering I have to pay nearly 400 for university applications, having to pay rent, paying for bus passes usually my own food, as well as my own necessary items that I keep discovering that I must buy now that I am not in the safe folds of a big family of any sort, and for simply Christmas in general--well, I've found myself a little bit more tight, monetarily, let's say.

(Yes, I know, one doesn't have to spend tons of money on gifts at Christmas, their friends will understand...I'm not even spending that much right now on the holiday season, it's just accumulated.)

Were I to complain?

Well, where do you spend all your money, D?

And if I don't feel like telling them this because it's none of their damn business and sorry I'm only nineteen and have neither government loans, a job that a University degree can provide, or the security to just simply borrow?

Well, you shouldn't waste your money. *unsympathetic face and bitch voice*

Well, are you sure this isn't just because I'm a little bit slow to throw my money at my parent's presents?

Because let's be honest. I'm not going to pretend that I only give gifts to those that I believe deserve them for some reason or another.

They're family.

So what?

So am I saying I don't think my parents deserve them?

To a degree.

You get what you give out.

I get that my parents have done a lot. They're great people. They're nice. They care.

Whatever.

I'm sorry if I'm the only daughter of their decision to have a mammoth family that feels a little bit left out. I'm sorry if I never felt that same love that apparently everyone else on the planet could see. I'm sorry that I'm weird, that I think differently than the rest of you, that my interests are strange, that my definition of things in life, things like beauty and love and what is right and wrong, are different than yours.

I'm sorry if I show other people that I'm angry.

I'm sorry that I'm honest.

I wholeheartedly apologize to the fact that I don't want to become indebted at my age because I don't feel myself obliged to give a quarter of my paycheque to these two people at their birthdays and anniversary and Christmas and Easter and Father's day and Mother's day and whatever else fucking holiday adults come up with to suck money out of the youth.

I don't feel obliged to do this for two people who do all but skip my own birthday every year, have never made efforts to support me financially in anyway except when I beg for twenty dollars, give dollar store gifts at Christmas, have always made me pay for my own and a million other little things that feel like getting run over and over by a bus again and again.

To the point where I want nearly nothing to do with you. I don't feel like answering with anything other than "okay" when you end with "I love you", something you've decided to say of late.

To the point where you make me so angry all the time.

To the point where your unsupportiveness causes me to get out of reach.

To say I work on birthday's and events, because I didn't feel like asking for that day off.

To the point where I'm just not available to you, and now you realize all the shit that was wrong before, but now it's too late and you cry and you wish I would come back and you still think it was all my fault.

But I can't feel for you anymore, because I lost that ability when it comes to you.

A long time ago.

You want your Deanna back. The sweet, loving little girl that you know is inside there. The one with the big heart and who always wanted you to just say that it was okay to cry.

But now it's too late for that.

She can't come back to you, because she lost her home and now she doesn't have one.