Teenage waste land

Dear Internet,

I hesitate to even write the crap down that is floating inside my head, because, well, it seems so mean and downright bitchy. However, I know that you, dear sweet internet, will understand. You are so forgiving of me, besides I am up with heart burp in the middle of the night, and I think the only cure is to get this ugliness out of my system.

To my niece Kendra,

I love you more than words can express. I have loved you ever since your crazy mother came to live back home with us when she was 4 months pregnant with you, after being on the run for more than 2 years. She turned our lives upside down yet again. I know that it's not your fault that your mother is crazy and a drug addict. I know it's not your fault that when she came back Uncle Chad and me were trying to plan our wedding and all of a sudden everything was about your mother and not about us anymore. I understand you can't help that your mother married your rapist father in prison only 2 days before my wedding, when she was 9 months pregnant with you, just to upstage my own big day. I tell you these things not to make you feel guilty but instead so that you will understand. Understand that my love for you has survived and grown despite the fact that your arrival into my life has been anything but perfect or without complications.

Your behavior has been confusing me for quite some time now. I thought you had finally figured it out after all the trouble you had been in. I thought that you understood all the pain you had caused. You have been living with Grandma (my mom) for the last 12 months or so and haven't ran away for a good 6 months. I thought we were making progress! It seemed we had finally turned that provibal corner. You turned 16 and Grandpa said he would buy you a car, you got a job, you were doing awesome in school. Life was good, right?

You were missing for a little over a week this time around. I feared the worst, Brianna Dennison was looming in my consciousness. I did not know how my heart would beat and I would continue breathing if you died. Yesterday Grandma called to tell me that you were arrested in Las Vegas. Las Vegas? Yes, and although the details are sketchy at this point you are in juvvy in Vegas and go to court today. Running away is not against the law so you must have done something big this time. The cop that called Grandma works in the teenage runaway prostitute division so one's imagination doesn't have to wander very far to come to conculsions.

WHY? What were you thinking? Have you no appreciation for how good you have it? This is not the first time you have ran away and suffered horribly devestating consquences. You know how many bad people there are out in the big bad world. I just don't get it. I really really don't. When will this stop? When will you decide that enough is enough? Do you really really want your mother's life? You seem to be hell bent on living it, don't you? It hasn't exactly been a bed of roses for her, has it? As I type this she is on the run from the law and has 4 warrants out for her arrest and is addicted to herion. I am thinking she probably isn't having the time of her life.

Your behavior and selfishness makes me so angry that I can't see straight. And right after I get really angry I feel guilty. Guilty because I DO love you so much and I want you to live a good life and people that you truly love shouldn't make you as angry as I feel sometimes. After the guilt I am filled with intense sadness because I just don't know when you are going to stop and I don't want you to lose you. Immediately following the sadness is grief for the that sweet little girl that I adored so much that seems to be lost & gone forever. What went wrong? What could we have done differently to make things turn out better for you???

I am grateful that you are okay this time. I hope that you haven't contracted yet another VD or are pregnant. I pray that you are sent back to juvvy for a very long time so that you will be safe. I am hoping against hope that Grandma doesn't try and fix this for you yet again. You have got to feel some consquences for your behavior dear sweet girl or I fear what will happen to you. As much as I love Dateline I don't know what to see a episode starring you.

I love you.

Your aunt Jodi