What a bleeding holiday...

I am writing to you, internet, from my cellphone, in my parents' basement, and I am sitting here - no longer sobbing. I might be again, I will try to control it. Just barely made it over the 48 hour mark. My sister, after repeated warnings, got into politics with our grandparents, who happened to be over for dinner. The talk then was immigration. Specifically, of course, undocumented immigrants/illegal immigration. My sister, of course, got terribly upset (I just stopped listening to them to avoid such) and stormed off. Somehow we then started talking about bankruptcy, and I mentioned the new trend of debtor's prison. Long story short, I wind up listening to my grandmother say people should live within their means: they couldn't afford to send their kids to college. I explain that cannot go to college without ending up in debt, that I have no choice. At this point, given that I am all too cognizant of the fact that I am already in debt and only going to get deeper before I graduate, I am holding back tears. My grandfather wonders, aloud, why everyone needs to get a college degree anyway, since aren't there jobs out there that you don't need a hugely expensive degree to hold?

So I excuse myself, go to wash my face, and wind up sobbing because ever since I was sixteen, all anyone in my family would talk about was how I was wasting my potential and I should go to college and Dad, on and on about how my job didn't pay enough and I needed to get a Real Job, nevermind that I was making $12/hr at a retail store, and saving to pay my own tuition through community college.

Looks like I should've just offed my supervisor and spent the rest of my life as a manager of a retail store, wondering what would have happened if I had taken a chance and moved out west.

Then I came downstairs and plugged in my laptop.

The screen is cracked. The whole display is gone.

It took me something like four months to save up for that, three years ago. Right now, my parents - after a financially stressful summer - are going to spend a bit more than they're entirely comfortable with to get my stepbrother a laptop he really needs for school. I cannot, in good conscience, say a word about this to them. Which unfortunately includes weeping about it or complaining.

But seriously Lord, why? Was this really necessary? All at once like this?