in memory;;

One whole year.

There's always something left unspoken, something that I remembered only after you were gone that I wished I could have said. I wish you knew that those gloves were hiding under the couch the entire time. I wish you knew how much you were loved. I loved your home, and your pups, and your laugh. I loved our chats and hearing about your life. I loved that you enjoyed the stories I told about mine. I loved your cooking, and when we shared cheese fries. I loved showing you pictures of my life, and looking at snapshots of yours.

I miss what our family used to be.

Love,
the middle granddaughter,
Renu

contemplating;;

I am still trying to wrap my mind around much cigarette smoke I inhaled last night.

I put myself in an unknowingly uncomfortable position, and as much as I'd love an excuse to rail against the Florida smoking laws, I opted to stay in a smoky venue for 3+ hours. Shame on me.

It's an all-encompassing frustration, though. It's not just the cigarettes, or the spilled beer on my shirt, or that guy behind me who kept apologizing for almost catching my hair on fire with his joint, it's that in a normal situation, if I was healthy, I would be laughing about last night, instead of in a near panic about my lung function. The crowd was riotous, no doubt, but nothing that I wouldn't expect from such a show. The pit was insane and it took a lot of effort by my petite self to stay afloat and find a safe corner. That's normal. And fun! And to be expected. I love shows like that.

...but cigarettes?

This is what I try so hard to avoid, I rally so hard against, and here I was, two+ hours from home with a girl who flew from Massachusetts to see this show, and a venue with no re-entry.

I'm swimming against the tide on this one. Smoking might be too big for me to handle.

I blinked and we were all grown up.
Literally, five days ago I woke up and asked my mom to let me wear my pink jumpsuit with the kitties on it, for the tenth day in a row.



The Hicks & Smiths joined us at the Naples abode for a few days of R&R. I was able to meet my cousin's baby, Addison. She's an amazing mother, and has fallen into the role with such ease. But I still picture Kristin as the seventeen year old with the fun car that had the loud stereo who bought cherry red high heels and drove around with me for hours until we lost our voices from singing along to Ludacris's fine rhymes at two in the morning.

The only singing we did this time was a song about 'baby beluga in the big blue sea'. And I must say, we sang the shit out of it.

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

-C.S. Lewis

I can't stop laughing.
Oh god.
She let me wear my chain and my turtleneck sweater.
Ahahaha.
It kills me.