View Through A Cracked Windshield

You know... sometimes I just think that we're better off not planning ANYTHING.
Two years ago, I'll admit, I was planning just about nothing. But I did think that I'd be headed somewhere. I did think my grades would still be miles above average. I did think I would have friends, seeing how I was just emerging from the strange, sour, sunless pit of friendless existance I previously lived in. I did think I'd still be able to run and play baseball. I did think that I'd have a job. I did think I'd be in Running Start.
I'm 16 -- 17 in two months -- and look at me.

1) I've had to dump my intended major (acting/directing/stage management) because the Theatre World requires more stamina than I will ever have again. So much for all those college fairs! So much for being on top of it. Now I'm looking into Psychology. Sitting behind a desk and listening to people doesn't take all that much stamina. Plus I enjoy it.
2) My grades are fine, true, but it takes me forever to get to them. I AM still doing last year's work, after all. Right now, that means Algebra and Economics and American Goverment. I'm in Chapter 3 of Econ, 5 of AmGov, and 32 of Algebra. That's really pathetic. How am I supposed to do two school years when, right now, I'm suffering from major headaches ALL DAY that make it impossible to see straight, reason, and sometimes talk? Most of my school is at the computer, and that also makes things difficult, because sometimes the screen makes it worse.
3) Friends. True, I have them. I have some of the best friends anyone could wish for. But get this --- only ONE of those I actually trust lives in the same state. ONE. The rest are off in college or Chicago or somewhere else unreachable. One true friend within touching distance. And yes, I have more than that. But only one I really really really love with my entire being lives near. And I don't see him nearly often enough.
4) I can't run without throwing my pelvis out of alignment. I can't throw without my shoulder going out of whack. I can't sit down on the floor without popping a knee. I can't get up in the morning without being stiff. It's like old age, without any of the life experience or wisdom.
5) I have a one-day-a-week job with a co-worker I can't stand. Jeremy, I miss you. The upshot is spending time with my adorable kids... Gah. Jeremy, I miss you. The kids miss you too. At a rate of $8.55 an hour, I earn about $85.00 a month. This does not constitute a good job, nor will it get me through college once I graduate High School. I need a job.
6) No Running Start! For one thing, I'm a schoolwork-wise Sophomore. For another thing, my mother has no time to run me around to Green River CC, because Micah is ridiculously busy. I spend most of my time at home in front of the computer while he runs around to coffee shops for Spanish class, Trinity Baptist for co-op, Kentridge for percussion class, etc. What do I have? Oh, yes. I have Massage Therapy (don't be jealous, it hurts like you wouldn't believe) and Chiropractor! I'm learning so much about skeletal structure that I should be getting school credit.

I also used to think I knew what I was supposed to learn from this whole experience. Months ago, I thought I knew. I'm supposed to hand all my troubles over to God, who owns them in the first place. He put them in my life for a purpose --- it's my job to embrace the purpose and continue running headlong down the path He's laid out specifically for me and the people I run beside.
::sigh:: I still believe that. Really, I do. I cling to it every night when I go to sleep sobbing. I sing it to myself while I'm sitting home alone on an ice pack while the healthy people go about their lives. I pour it out when I play piano, each note striking a need inside me for Him.

But it's been a year. Over a year. The 4th was the Anniversary of that pathetic little crash. I sometimes wonder how the other people in the crash came out. The girl who ran into the people behind us didn't get hurt. She just sat on a curb looking lost and scared afterward. Mom went and got her a Starbucks while they waited for a tow truck to haul away the wreckage of the totaled vehicle that was crunched between her beater and our truck. The woman in the middle car was taken the hospital unconscious and bleeding. Will I ever know what happened to her? Is she okay? Does she still live with the consequences of that car accident, like I do? Will they follow her the rest of her life? Does she have scars?

What about the girl who ran into us? She was college age, and not from the area. I know for a fact she has no clue what's going on with me. I don't know what's going on with her. Does she think about us? The people she accidentally wounded? Maybe the woman in the middle car. But probably not those of us in the truck. I walked away from that accident laughing. No one except my family saw me 2 hours later, doubled over in pain and sleepless.

Isn't that kind of a messed up system? Here we are, three people who literally had a run-in a year ago, a run-in changed the directions of two of our lives. But we don't talk? We don't know what's going on with each other? We don't... reach out? My Insurance and the Insurance of the college girl seem to be working together in some kind of sadistic pact to kick me out of treatment. They've stopped paying for my various therapies. I'm really glad I never started going to the Psychiatrist, like my doctor suggested, because it'd just be another bill we don't really have the money to pay.

That's the other thing. Mother is, right now, off doing a job. She used to do jobs to fund my pianoing. Now, she's doing jobs to keep me in treatment. Treatment with no end in sight.

But............... one of my few true friends took time out of his life today to distract me from my pain. Somehow, that little, short, wonderful thing has made life seem bearable.

I have to think some more on all of this.

Love Endures All Things,

Brenna