If The Song Fits...

I am going to need so much of this song over the next while. I don't even know how long.
(Casting Crowns: "Does Anybody Hear Her?")

Let's just say that my sister K didn't make the same choices I made. We could easily have made the same ones, but we didn't. Most people say they have issues. Well, K has a subscription. Not a lifetime one, but so many that I won't get into all of them. I barely let myself to think about them all very often; it's exhaustive.

She's had some wake up calls. Run-ins with this, that, and the other thing. Sometimes getting herself into trouble, sometimes squeaking out of it. But she kept hitting the snooze button.

Until she lost her job and drove 500 + miles out to visit me for Christmas. Since it was unplanned, I had to work and she had a lot of time to herself. I imagine she got a lot of thinking done during her excursion. Not to mention some of the seed packets I gave her, hoping she would plant and nourish them. I think the only reasons she left were because she was driving Mom's car and she had appointments to resolve legal issues. Otherwise, I'm sure she would have stayed.

She wanted to move out here in February, but didn't have a job. And wouldn't be able to find one that would support her and her debts within a reasonable amount of time. Thank you, Economy. In the meanwhile, she got a job at Wal-Mart's deli. She found out that she can transfer to another store after 3 months. Which would be the end of this month, beginning of May. Which would be ideal, since a lot of student-geared housing would be opening up about that time. Except she wouldn't have a driver's license or a car, and this city isn't friendly to alternative methods of travel, considering it's size. The car is one thing; I'm willing to coordinate car usage with her until she can get her own, but the lack of a license is another.

She'll get her license back in June. She's hoping to have paid what she owes the county by then and be out here by August.

The reason she wants to move out here is to obtain my help in cleaning her up. She's got too many tainted connections back home and she holds no respect for my parents. We've been trying to clean her up for years. Before she got really bad, even. That's why she moved in with my dad. He didn't know what to do with her and she got a job closer to Mom's, so K moved back in there. Dad was relieved, but only for so long. Mom's not the best influence for cleaning up.

In fact, at one point, before K even came down for Christmas, the topic came up in one of our conversations. I mentioned it the next time I talked to Mom, and her reply was: Good. Then you can take care of her. I told K that's what Mom had said, and K said Mom had said the same thing to her. *sigh* It seems like it's always been like this.


K and I talked this afternoon about her (eventual) move to this city with me. We decided that, for a myriad of reasons (some mine, mostly hers), it would be best if I moved out of the place I'm in now and the two of us got a place together. Even though we haven't lived together in 9-10 years, I think we'll be okay. She wouldn't be able to hack it on her own, for a number of reasons; and I wouldn't subject anyone else to living with her or her living with a stranger for a number of different reasons.

Considering her reasons for moving this far away from anything she's ever known (I made a gradual progression away from home), I'm going to create some guidelines that she'll have to agree to before coming out here. There is going to have to be a lot of consideration about how K will react to living by these guidelines. I need to be able to handle her reactions, basically. I truly believe, though, that because she and I are who we are and because of our relationship, I'll be able to make them more restrictive than anyone else ever could. She's told me she respects me more than she does anyone else, including either of our parents. And, like most things in my life, it simultaneously cheers and saddens me. That's a lot of pressure. I hope I can stand up to it.