well blow me down

well, I got to chat with the prosecutor this afternoon.

my dad’s petition to revoke his sentence was filed in may, and he has been in court twice since then,

(I interupted to ask if that’s because he’s fighting it)

no, he has not tried to fight this. the court date on the 19th is because he intends to have sold some property by that time to pay off the restitution. that date was set aside as the day he would give the money to the judge. but, since the judge has decided to go on vacation, that will be pushed back for a couple weeks – likely the first week in december.

(but wait – when this sentence was made, everyone said to never expect to see the money)

yes, I know I told you that on that day, but he has made no effort to fight this. he hasn’t even hired a lawyer for himself. but the judge knows that you would rather have the money than have him back in jail, so he’s doing everything he can do ensure that you get it.

I hung up the phone, covered my face with my hands, and tried to decide whether to breathe, cry, scream, or call my mom. I breathed in, blinked away the tears, and called my mom.

my mom was much more calm. she asked me to repeat what I had learned twice, then had an idea for where dad could have gotten the property. she then spoke briefly about what I could do with the money. she gave more options that I could ever have considered in just those few minutes – savings, investment, loans, buy a better car.

so. it seems I may soon be getting $40,000. um….wow? I just can’t comprehend it. well, it’s not like it’s $100,000 – THAT would be amazing. but $40,000 is amazing enough for me. that’s almost as much as my loans that I have right now. that’s almost how much I’ll need to live off of for the next 4 years (which would take me right up to internship year).

if I had known in october that I would be getting this money, I wouldn’t have gotten the second job. but I have it, I enjoy it, and I’ll stay on board for at least a while. my supervisor started asking me last night to take on more hours – and it sounded so absurd even last night, when I only expected that I would be receiving $100 a week from dad. she kept trying to say that it would be a little bit more money, and of course I could use it with all those loans. well, she’s right, but knowing that I have money coming in from my dad makes it less urgent to bust my ass and stress myself out just for a little bit more money through this job.

it’s amazing that I started out in august, broke and asking mom for money, and telling others how broke I was. it’s amazing how much I stressed in september and october, realizing what a mess I was getting myself into with my debt. I was so low then….and now I’m not going to be quite so broke anymore.

I guess another thing to think about it becoming truly independent from my mom….paying my own cell phone bill and my own insurance bill. that would definitely increase my living expenses, but it’s also the right thing to do for my mom, probably. that’s something else to consider with her, once I actually do have the money.

it would be terrible at this point to NOT get it – after getting sooo excited over it.

the interesting thing is the cognitive dissonance that both me and my mom have been using. it was easy to believe that he would never pay the money. it was easy to believe, once we found out he had been in court, that he was fighting the order to pay. we were so prepared to appear in court against him. it’s much easier to hate him when we think he doesn’t want to give us any money. it’s much easier to feel empowered over him when we have to fight in court against him to get what we deserve.

for me, it’s much harder to think that he may be willing – at least on some level – to give me this money. does he know how much it means? is he truly actually remorseful for everything? does that mean that I may feel indebted to him?

and to end on a happier note (or a naive one): I can’t wait to have the money, so that I can tell people the great news. not that I would tell many, but I don’t want to tell anyone before I actually have it.