I started training to run a mini with my dad in the spring. The training is kicking my ass, so there's no telling what the actual marathon will do. I'm excited to finally get in the best shape of my life though. It's nice to do something like this with my old man, even though he's only 46. I get in these moods sometimes where I just think about my parents as ordinary people and not the two people who raised me. It's weird to think about your Mom and Dad as anything but that, but sometimes I do. I think about what their first date must have been like in high school, or how scared they must have been when I was born, or even how more scared they were when they signed divorce papers. They really have taught me every valuable lesson that I know. My mom is a hard ass, she's mean, she's bitter, but even more than that, she's so emotional. About everything. She didn't tell me she loved me very much growing up, and hugging was never a big thing, but she wept at my fifth grade graduation. She was furious when I broke curfew because she was sick with worry. She called my principal in middle school and totally berated him because I came home with some bruises on my arm, and she thought I was being bullied. She's a spitfire, that's for damn sure, but she loves me in her weird ways. My dad loves me with humor. He always has. He makes fun of literally everything about me, but our witty banter is reality show worthy. Where my mom has taught me to be strong and fiercely independent, my dad has taught me to laugh and be vulnerable.

My writing has slowed down a bit, which makes me sad, but I have made a resolution to always carry a pen and notepad in my purse. I do my best writing on pen and paper, and I used to be that girl who was writing in the airport or the grocery store line, or in traffic (which is dangerous, I know). I'm gonna be that annoying super nerd again.

I WANT TO GO TO A CONCERT SO BADLY. It's been so long since I've been to one. There are so many great artists I want to see. I'm gonna list them in no particular order so I can reference this later. Mumford & Sons, One Republic, Garth Brooks (heard he has a 2014 tour coming up), Keith Urban, The Counting Crows, Kings of Leon, The Lumineers, Phillip Phillips, Jay Z, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Red Hot Chili Peppers, DMB, Ben Rector, etc. The list is endless actually. One Republic just had a show in Nashville and by the time I heard about it, the show was sold out of course. I'll get to one eventually!

I'm spending my Saturday night with my Yankee Candle, Spotify, and one large, sleepy puppy. I'm a regular party animal. I think next weekend my goal is to get completely trashed. To the threshold of blacking out. I haven't been really drunk in such a long time. It's actually a really awesome feeling to be completely obliterated on occasion. A bottle of wine will usually do the trick or about 3 Budlight Platinums.

I've been having such a hard time sleeping the last like 4 months. Just horrible nightmares. I have a hard time remembering most of them, but I wake up a few times throughout the night suddenly and in a panic. It's nothing major, just totally weird, and it freaks Cooper out.

My upcoming plan is to get my own website up and running. I plan to invest some money and actually have a legit site and not just some poorly designed blog. My idea is to have it mostly as an online portfolio of my work. Nothing on this worthless blog will go on there obviously, but I don't think anyone has really seen my true work, with the exception of an awesome professor and mentor. My focus in the upcoming months is truly just profile work. I want to really hone in on the craft of depicting someone's story in beautiful essay form. I call it creative non-fiction. Sometime down the line, I'd love to pair with a local photographer to create photo essays to go with my work. We'll see.

I've had this sadness about me lately, and I really can't shake it. No matter how happy I am in the moment, in the pit of my stomach, there's this fist just twisting and twisting. I don't think it's a sign of anything deeper or anything, but there are just certain "things" I guess that prevent me from ever really being truly happy anymore. It kills me that I can't let these go, but it's just recently gotten worse the past few months. I'm in a relationship with a man I love so much, and obviously over a period of 4 years, you start to think about making that walk down the aisle. And everytime I think about it (which really isn't that often), it just makes me so sad. Not sad about marrying the man I love, but sad because at this point, my little brother won't even get an invite, let alone be a part of one of the most important days of my life. It's this sinking thought that never leaves. He has only gotten worse with each passing day, so much so, that there's nothing I can even write about anymore. Most of the time, no one even knows where he is. He's just this ambling ghost of a boy I once knew and loved. God, it's so fucking sad. And here I am walking around every day holding this memorial service in my head for my little brother because I know he's never coming back. He's just so far gone. My dad called today and we talked about it, and this conversation was so different. We both cried, but for a totally different reason than we would have 6 months ago. My dad said to me that he felt like he only had one child now. He said he woke up everyday with just this heavy weight like what it might feel like to be a parent who had lost a child. I told him he kind of had. My youngest brother just turned 14 a month ago, and we all got together to celebrate, and Anthony made an appearance and was high out of his fucking mind. He just stood there, and I was so angry. I hardly spoke to him and left shortly after. God, I'm crying now because it's just so goddamned sad. Anthony was 15 when he nearly killed himself and spent 2 weeks in the ICU. Jake will be 15 next year. As I've helped Jake with school projects, went to various awards ceremonies, basketball games, baseball games, I know 15 will come and go and he will be fine. And normal. He'll go on to get his driver's license. He'll go to his high school prom, and he'll graduate. He'll go away to college, live in a dorm, get a serious girlfriend, and be the success he was destined to be. All of these things Anthony never gave himself a chance to do. I'll be so proud of Jake, just like I always have been. He's such a great little brother. He really is. He'll be a groomsmen at my wedding if the day ever comes, he'll be a wonderful uncle to my kids, and he'll remind me that I'm not a horrible sister. Because every day, I just think "What if?" I've actually gotten so much better about it in the last year, but still the thought haunts me. I would give ANYTHING to go back in time 4 years ago and ask Anthony why he was about to swallow those pills. I've played the scenario in my head a million times. I would literally give my life. If I had the option to only live to be the age of 25, on this exact day, just so so I could go back 4 years to that day, I'd do it without hesitation. I saw him lying there, just puking everywhere and crying and begging me to call an ambulance. And I never thought that day would lead us here. I never thought that day would lead me to Nashville in my tiny apartment by myself crying on a Saturday night because I'm an emotional train wreck and no amount of wonderful things can bring him back.