BUT it is the only day of the whole year that I get to spend time with my sister without her kids. So of course, every year, I bundle up and brace myself to wait in long lines and freeze my ass off for things I don’t want or care about. I don’t really mind helping her find everything on the kids’ Christmas lists, though. Toys ‘R’ Us is always our first stop and the rest varies. This is the first year we didn’t go to stupid fuckin’ Old Navy.

This is also the first year that we had a little time alone guess what was the first thing she did. She said that she was still thankful to be out of the house. She said she still doesn’t understand why our mom is sweet as pie to everyone but her own family and that she’s well aware that it’s still an act. She said she understands very much how I feel every day. It felt like one of the best moments of my life. I wanted to break down right there in fuckin’ Wal-Mart but my mom was coming back from her quest to find the biggest, cheapest television.