Cherish it.

There's this girl at school who is complaining because her boyfriend broke up with her.
"Life sucks," she says. "My life is over."
Well, Chickidee, it doesn't and it's not. There are people out there who are worse off than you, and I'm not even talking about those in poverty-ridden countries, like Haiti or Ethiopia. I'm talking about people right here, in the state of Texas.
My friend Kathy's* mom had her at age 16. She had been raped and was under the influence of drugs until she found out she was pregnant. She had Kathy and kept her. She met and married a man named Dee*, who was at least 10 years her senior, when she was 21. She had another daughter by the time she was 22 named Sally*, and then a couple years later, another girl named Briana*.
All was well with the family until Dee was killed in a car accident in 2005. After that, Dee's family ostracized his wife, and Kathy.
Kathy's mom moved the whole family out to Texas to live near her parents in Dallas.While in Dallas, Kathy's mom met a guy online on a gamer's site. They started dating and she got pregnant. They married, and he moved down from New Jersey. Kathy's mom became jealous of Kathy, especially when Kathy was around Charles*. Kathy was 13 when this started. Kathy's mom kicked Kathy out of the house when Kathy was a freshman, and Kathy moved to live with her grandmother in another town.
Kathy moved back in with her mom six to eight months later,and the new family moved to the same town as her grandma.

All was well, except for the name calling by Kathy's mom- along the lines of slut, whore, bitch, etc.
Kathy's biological dad started talking to Kathy through Myspace. Kathy visited him in Australia, and then decided to move there, because her mother was so verbally abusive.
She met her dad's fiance, and made fast friends with their friends. Her dad got more and more controlling and wouldn't let her go anywhere unless he or his fiance were with her. She arrived in Australia in late December, but was not enrolled in school until May. Kathy realized she would probably have to do her sophomore year all over again unless she was placed in school, so she asked to go back home, and her dad said he had no money to buy her a plane ticket.
Kathy's mom, in America, bought her ticket. Kathy arrived home in the States in June. She found out her grandparents had paid for the plane ticket, and then had made bad financial decisions and were collecting what Kathy owed them. They told her she had until she was 18, which at the time was only two months away, to pay them back $2000.00. Also, Kathy's mom stopped recieving social security payments on Kathy from her deceased husband's Social security, and Kathy started receiving a smaller amount. Kathy had to open a bank account now that she was 18 years old. Kathy had started a new school year, her junior year, in a new town, also thanks to her parents.

Her parents then moved to another town. Kathy wanted to finish the school year, so she moved in with her boyfriend's family. She bought a car with her money, but her mother still had access to it. Kathy had $600.00 set aside for car repairs and for prom shopping, and her mother, from another town, spent it "accidentally".

All this shows that there is always someone whose life sucks, just as there's always someone whose life rocks.
Cherish it.



* Names have been changed for security reasons.