Harder Than I Thought

Balancing school and a boyfriend is hard. I suppose for me it is. I know a girl who worked, had a boyfriend, played basketball and was amazing in school. She was my valedictorian. She was beast. I think it's a good thing that I have a boyfriend and I'm in school. It was different from when I went to school with my boyfriend, I just saw them at school and that's how we bonded. Stan and I don't get to see each other all that much and that's ok. It makes handling school easier.
I kind of fell behing in my school work already but I caught up. I just have to do schoolwork every night so that I don't have to do any of it on the weekends.
Today's post though, isn't completely about Stan and college. Tonight, whilst on a date with Stan, my mother called. She called about my brother's homework. She complained that he didn't listen to her, that he doesn't understand anything she says and that he didn't tell her about his homework until tonight. I told her to give Tanner the phone. I threatened to break his laptop and hit him if he did it again. I was angry. Not completely about him, but how my mother handled it. As I spoke to my mother and brother, Stan gave me this look and stroked my arm. I hung up and he asked if I was ok. We talked a little about my mom. How she wants to leave to go back to the mother country, which she will be in 6 years, permanantly that is, how she tells my mentally challenged brother, Lance, that she hates him. Stan said that he should be happy here, with her family, not half way across the world. I looked at him and said that it was her family making her suffer. A year ago when she went to visit the mother country for the first time in about 12 years, the month before she left was the happiest I'd ever seen her in the longest.
I felt bad about not staying at home to help Tanner. He's only ten and I'm afraid he won't be raised properly by my mother. Stan told me that Tanner had me and that I just handled it. He meant it as though that I could discipline him from an hour away from the phone. I hope I can. He needs me. My mom isn't my mom anymore and my brothers aren't my brothers. All three of them are my kids now. And I'm in college trying to get the education to support them. Stan said he felt sorry for me, because I shouldn't have to take up responsibility for my brothers as if they're my kids. He said I should be happy. I think about it and I think, why can't my parents be happy too? That's why they're leaving us to go to the mother country, to go back where they were happiest.
I shed some tears right there in the restaurant. It was the first time I cried in front of him, other than tears of laughter. After we left, we leaned against his truck and talked a little more. I started crying again. On the drive back to my dorm, he made me laugh like crazy. We hung out in my dorm and we laughed even more. I felt better.
I think Stan still worries about me, because of my family situation. But he didn't leave until he was sure I was ok.
He is the sweetest to me.
Even so, I really wish I wasn't the mother of three.