the penguin in my head said "NO!" and I believed him.

Sometimes you think things are going to be fine, you’re going to be fine: sure, you’re mad at your sister for not cleaning up the kitchen after she made muffins two days ago, but she’s in law school and under a lot of (constant, unending, self inflicted) stress and so you should just let it go, go easy there, clean it up your damn self if it is pissing you off so much.

But then, after you have painstakingly talked yourself into this plan and world view while scraping hardened batter off the counter and filling the dishwasher, in she walks and your mouth inevitably sets in that frowny-line and you just can’t let it go. She’s a slob and lazy and not using her time well and her angsty bitching is totally unnecessary given how easy she currently has it. She takes four classes a week. And that’s it. No job, no commute even--we live around the corner from the law school (but she still drives. And complains about the parking tickets she gets when she leaves her car in the faculty lot). She is unhealthy and unmotivated to get healthy and I am fuming about all of it: all the bad choices I have seen her make and see her continue to make because I live with her.

God, I make a horrible roommate don’t I? I really was going to just try and let it go and get on with my own life (which is obviously what I should be concerning myself with: its not like I’m making a whole lot of good choices for my own self most days) but instead for some reason while I cleaned the kitchen last night I felt the need to ruminate on all her mistakes instead of my own. Which is bad for so many reasons, not least of which because despite my pessimistic world view last evening she hasn’t made that many.

She went to a private high school on a full scholarship and got a great education. She went to state college when she didn’t get any full scholarships to save money and made sure (through constant involvement) that she got a great education. She took two years of Russian and then went and lived in the Komi for four months her junior year (still so, so ballsy in my opinion) with just one other English speaker in a city of several hundred thousand. She applied for and got into the state’s only Law School, which is expensive but still way less expensive than her first choice (which she also got into but decided against because she didn’t want $200,000 worth of debt after three years. She said she didn’t want to have to sell her soul immediately after graduation if she could help it). She’s a cool kid, she’s got a wide group of friends an eclectic taste in music and an open mind about pretty much everything. She’s really generally exceptionally kick ass as a little sister, its just that sometimes I forget.