One of the Worst Friday Nights Ever. No, Really.

Exhibit A: When I went to Disneyworld, I spent a couple of days in Epcot. On the first day, I was heading back to our cabin/rooms to put something up and rest, because I hadn't slept well the night before. On my way towards the park exit, I saw a woman sitting by herself on a wall next to a garden. She had her head in hands, and I saw a few tears hitting the ground. In my opinion, no one should cry at Disneyworld, and I was almost certain that someone somewhere deserved to be punished for making her cry, but that wasn't my focus. I hung around that area for probably ten minutes trying to decide if I should do anything, or what I could do if I decided to. I eventually did ask her if she would be okay and if I could help her in any way. I will always wonder what happened to her. I wish I had been able to help her.

Exhibit B: Haleigh loves animals. She loves them so, so much. Not long ago, one our cats had caught a butterfly by the wings. Haleigh loves our cats, but she doesn't like to see anything in pain. She retrieved the butterfly from the cat's mouth as carefully as possible so as not to hurt it. I had huge holes in its wings from the cat's teeth, and I don't think it could ever possibly fly again, but Haleigh put it in some flowers out of the cat's reach anyway. She doesn't like to see any animal in pain. She is the main caretaker of our cats. She plays with them, feeds them, knows all their personalities and the differences between cats that seem otherwise identical. The only thing she won't do is give them medicine, because if they fight it or meow, she gets very upset and afraid that she will hurt them.

Exhibit C: I will not go into the nitty-gritty details, but I have an uncle who used to (and may still) grow, use, and deal illegal drugs. He sold these to my cousin, the son of a different uncle of mine, and he would get high in the basement while leaving his elementary-aged daughters upstairs by themselves. He's not a good person. He refuses to work, and so does his wife. He is thirty-some years old, and his entire life, my grandparents have payed for his food, clothing, water, electricity, taxes, housing, everything. He doesn't have his own money. He spends it on other drugs.

Exhibit D: Tonight was a Friday night. On most Friday nights, I go out with Han, because we don't see each other too much during the school days. Tonight, however, my parents went to help Emily with her house, and they were spending the night there. They asked me to stay home with my two younger sisters, Haleigh and Annalisa. I don't know if I have ever used a fake name for them before, but this is what I'm calling them now. They said I could go out Saturday night, so I said that was fine. I decided I could write a little, I could draw a little, get my room clean, relax... just take everything easy. It was going to be a good night.

But it was not to be. Because I get jumpy alone at night sometimes, Mom and Dad had Grandma and Grandpa come in and check on us, which is fine. But then, my cousin, the young daughter of my bum uncle, called my grandpa. My grandparents recently acquired a kitten, and she wanted it. Hers was sick, and her parents didn't have the money to take it to the vet. Grandma asked if she could have one of ours instead. She asked Haleigh this. Haleigh knows that their house is not a good place for a cat. We have kittens to spare, but we want them all to go to good homes, and Haleigh wants that more than any of us. In Exhibit C, I think I clarified that this does NOT qualify as a good home. So this was very, very awkward for her--she said she'd ask Mom and Dad and she came up to me to ask me what to do and see if she could call them. I could tell she was upset. She didn't want to tell Grandma and Grandpa, "No, we don't trust them to take good care of our cats, and we only give them to good homes," but there was no way she'd ever be able to let a kitten go to a home that would be unable to take care of it.

I call Mom and Dad, because I can tell she is too upset to do anything. I talk to them a little bit, told them that even though they don't mistreat their animals, they can't take care of them if they get sick or hurt, and pointed out that they have a habit of own multiple large, violent dogs at a time. They said that if we were really uncomfortable with letting them have a kitten, that was okay. Grandma eventually decided Zora could have her kitten.

Now, Haleigh was still kind of shaken from the stress of having to say "No" to Grandma, but she also felt bad--Grandma doesn't like animals very often, and she felt awful that Grandma was going to give her kitten up, and she also didn't like the idea of any kitten living there... Recall Exhibit B. Haleigh loves all animals, anything that is alive. She hates for them to be in pain.

After Grandma left, I tried to calm Haleigh down. She was upset about the kitten and felt guilty about Grandma giving hers away. She was doing okay. Her voice was a little shaky, and her eyes were moist, but she was doing okay. I suggested that she call Mom and Dad and give them an update, and told her that they would probably be able to help her feel better. So she did.

Ten minutes later, I walk into her room, and she is on the phone with Dad, in tears. And I am about to explode. Not only do I hate to see people cry, especially my little sisters, but I have spent over an hour trying to keep her calm, reassuring her that the kitten will probably be okay, and here she is, talking to Dad, whom we had relied upon to make things better, and it feels like all my efforts to calm her down have been wasted. Because now she is in tears. I felt so let down and betrayed--my parents are always saying to come to them with their problems, and here, we had, and things had only gotten worse.

So I probably over-reacted. That part doesn't matter that much. I got into it a little bit with Mom and Dad, but we smoothed it over.

But I cried. And Haleigh and Annalisa saw me. And I hated it. I can cry, surely. I can cry by myself, no problem. I can cry with my friends around. I can cry in front of my parents without too much problem. But crying in front of my little sisters--they're relying on me to be in charge, to be calm, to be able to handle whatever problem comes up. When I cried, I was not showing that I was going to be able to handle problems.

And Annalisa, who is ten, didn't know what to do. Both her older sisters were crying. I could tell she was confused. She just walked back and forth between our rooms, never looking at us, but obviously focusing on us. Now I will refer to Exhibit A, because she looked just how I felt when I was watching the lady crying in the park. Just wanting to do something, trying to think of something, not sure if she will be able to help. I felt so bad, and I felt like I had let her down. I know I always felt helpless and confused if I saw Emily cry... how must Annalisa have felt when she saw both of her older sisters crying?

So I felt let down by my parents, I felt stressed by Haleigh's distress, I felt as if I had let down my little sisters by crying when I should have been being an adult, and I feel disappointed in myself for not getting anything done. I also feel guilty that Grandma is giving away her kitten, and guilty that I got so angry at Dad when he wasn't being that mean. (At least, not as mean as he normally is.) There was not a single good emotion this entire night.

All in all, I would say this Friday night was a complete disappointment. Someone somewhere owes me a new Friday, I'm pretty sure.

<3 o.