Happy Birthday to You....

Today is my youngest sister's 17th birthday. I bought her a couple of gifts and asked her how she wanted to celebrate her big day. She just shrugged her shoulders and said we can wait to celebrate on Christmas. WHAT?!

It seems my sister was hoping to attend a party thrown by one of her friends in her honor. Of course this "friend" happens to have just gotten his own apartment and turned 21 years of age. This little bit of knowledge completely freaked my mother out...not that my mother doesn't have reasons for her concerns. No one wants their teenage daughter around older boys. Plus my sister has not used the best judgment when it comes to boys anyway. But before my mother could have a fit and begin her lecture, I took the moment to make light of the situation. I know, what the hell did I do that for?

My sister is a wild child. She loves the extreme and going against authority. The more you tell her NOT to do something the more determined she is to do it...especially if you are me or mom. She has been in rehab and juvie. Both because she failed to follow the rules and get her act together. She is relatively clean and sober. Mom has caught her drunk on occasion, but nothing as severe as the cocaine use or other hard core drugs she used to take. Of course, homophobic narrow-minded person disagrees with me about her being clean and sober. "Alcohol is a drug!" Yeah okay it is, but it is also legal. Well, not at her age...but still. Personally, I think he just has to disagree with me because it is etched in his DNA to do so. But that is for another post...

They say that when a person starts doing drugs they mentally stop developing. My sister began taking drugs at the age of ten. About that time her grades plummeted and she began to care about nothing. She lost all her ambitions and no longer desired becoming a veterinarian. She came to live with me where I tried to encourage and push her in to some type of direction. Of course at the time, I was oblivious to her drug use. Eventually she ended up back at our mother's. She started running away and disappearing for days at a time.

Inevitably she fell into the juvenile justice system. She had spent some nights in juvenile hall and finally lost all her chances. She ended up in a state facility geared to teens with drug problems. It is located at the State Hospital in Vernon, TX. She stayed there for seven months. During her stay there, one of her ex-boyfriends died. He overdosed, but it is rumored that it was intentional. She mourned the loss and slowly began to turn her life around. Her grades began improving and she actually talked about attending college someday. Today she is beginning to show signs of maturity, but she still has a long way to go.

Now her only vice is smoking cigarettes. Another habit we are trying to break her from. She says she has to smoke. It keeps her sane while she lives with mom. Granted my mother is not the easiest person to live with. Hell, I moved out at the age of 15. And my coping mechanism was not much better...over-achieving, compulsive loaner.

Anyway, so today she was more concerned about hanging out with her friends than her family. I cannot blame her cause I was exactly the same way at her age. And when she was truthful with us about her preliminary celebration plans, I tried to keep our mother from losing her gasket. Because if my sister knew how much our mother disapproved of it, it would make my sister all the more determined to make it happen. So I made some jokes. I voiced my opinion in a manner that showed my true feelings without pushing my sister to want to rebel.

Was it manipulative? Yes. Do I regret it? Nope. My sister ended up staying the night at a friends house which was verified by our mother. She did spend the afternoon with us and opened her gifts. No cake was shared. No big dinner. But we were together and that meant something to all of us.

Now if I could just get the girl to get a freakin jobby job!!!!