For the past three years on my birthday, I've been in Florida reading AP exams. Universally,

Who the hell knows what I was planning to say here? I started this post in June, and now it's October. Why do I start things and never finish? Why do I plan to go back when I know I won't? And why don't go back and finish things? Is there something in me that won't allow it? I know my personality type is more of a starter, but I seem to finish only under duress. I'm a teacher's nightmare, yet I'm a teacher?

I would hate having myself as a student.

Simply a List

This is what I want to write about:

My grandma's stay in St. John's for exactly four weeks, her death, her funeral.
I know that if I don't write about these things soon I will forget them and they will be gone.

I feel this striking sense of losing my extended family without her and my mom to hold me to them. I saw people this month that I'll probably never see or hear from again.

Is this what it's like when everyone gets older?

My friends having babies and being pregnant while I feel like a barren wasteland. Not becuase I can't get pregnant, but because we're not ready yet. And then I wonder if I will ever be ready for a baby. And then I think about not having my mom to show me how to be a mother in the first few hours and days of a newborn's life. Yes, that may come to me, but I wish I didn't have to rely on my instincts alone. I wish that I was able to look into my mother's face as she held my child for the first time.

Memories that my family and I shared around my grandmother's hospital bed as she took her last breaths.

Mary Carsten's love of the family tree, and how it literally drove her to work my grandma's funeral.

The last wishes paper that is lost.

The dating talk I had with Piper.