A lot has happened since I last wrote in here. I was sorta neglecting this and just letting myself live through things and keep pushing towards my ultimate goal. But I've gone through two major events that I just really need to hash out on here. I'm not really sure how this is going to end up, when I'm driving and just thinking in my head it all sounds right, but when I end up writing things down it never sounds as good as it did in my head.

Three weeks ago my family went through the death of my Aunt Lynda. It was a huge family event. We all were there the night she was emitted in the hospital and only left in the early hours of the morning to come back the next day for another long day of waiting. Not just waiting, but another day of just being there for each other. We all crowded around her bed as we took her off life support and just waited. I saw it as really beautiful. I always end up watching people a lot. And I watched her kids stand so strongly at her side just being there for her and letting her know that it was going to be okay. The second day we were at the hospital we were all there until about 4 AM. At one point we started to trickle into the waiting room and when I made my way in there we were all just sleeping in any place we could find. There was just something about that picture that really got to me. We were all there, and we weren't going anywhere, and none of us really wanted to. We were perfectly fine just being there, for my aunt and for each other.

When she died it was heartbreaking and yet so incredibly beautiful. I thought it was amazing when Ryan whispered into her ear and she opened her eyes for those few last moments with all of us. And then when she was gone my family went into super mode. We made sure Rachel was prepared for her graduation and tried to make it so that all of us could be there for her. Michelle got out her notepad and started writing down everything we would need for Aunt Lynda's memorial service. Kenny came up with a beautiful idea to have it at the house with a horse parade, everything my Aunt Lynda loved in life. The few days leading up to the service we were always over at their house working on the yard, planning things, planting flowers, cleaning out everything. And it was our entire family. My Aunt Carol and her husband came up from North Carolina along with my cousin Pat and his wife and kid, and everyday we were doing something over at their house.

As unfair as her death was, I was able to accept it. I could rationalize that if she had to have cancer, well then at least we were all together for her final days and we really pulled together as a family. We were all able to be there for each other, and we were all ready to be a better and bigger family to Ryan and Rachel. But god.. then Rachel was ripped from us and three weeks later our entire world came crashing down on all of us again. This is one that I can't accept yet. That night I went to sleep with such a pounding headache and just ended up tossing and turning for hours before I fell asleep but then woke up so early. And I just layed in bed crying and I could feel the loss in my stomach. I would get this wave of ... i don't even know.. something, in the pitt of my stomach.

I can't even really put into words yet everything that I'm feeling. It's impossible to deal with, me Nina Leah Ryan and Rachel grew up together. We drifted a little in the teenage years, which is natural, and we were just starting to get back to always hanging out with each other again and being the family that we once were, instead of just the Christmas and Fourth of July family. I don't regret or feel sad that we were that family for awhile, I'm just mad that we were robbed of what we could have become again. We all remarked on how good it felt that we were all there for each for Aunt Lynda's service. That's the difference between family and friends, with family you can be apart for a few years but then come back and be right where you were. Maybe not in the exact same place, but you mold back into each other so easily because you have such a history with each other.

We were looking at old pictures last night at dinner. Ryan was over and I don't even know where all the pictures came from but we found pictures from my Grandma's dad, and then we found pictures from us when we were younger and the years when we all practically lived at my Grandma's house. It made me realize what complex histories we all have. These situations make you really realize all of that. My mom and Aunt Lynda had kids at pretty much the same time, so when we were younger we were always with each other. I have countless memories of us at our house, or my Aunt Lynda's house and millions of us at our Grandma's house. Putting on plays in her basement, carving TY in the tree in her backyard, and then getting yelled at by Grandma for that, the seemingly never ending supply of popsicles, playing with all of her flower shop supplies downstairs, and just the countless nights that we all slept over there. We have such an intense and intertwined history together and I really realized it last night.

But that's not the only history we have. Outside of the "Grandma" stories we have our other side of the families. I have the Pivirotto's and Ryan and Rachel have the Parkers. The vines just weave in and out of so many people and there are so many connections that I didn't realize. Realizing all of this just made me so sad that Rachel's story has stopped. She won't be able to grow up with all of us as we take new pictures to add to all of the boxes and as we grow new connections. I'm still in the pissed off at the world stage. It's hard to accept that this is her story. Her story is a beautiful one, she was such an amazing girl. At Aunt Lynda's memorial service after the priest did his thing me and Leah walked over to her and she was done hugging people and we just watched each other walk towards each other and we just all had that look of recognition of love on our faces and she said to us "I love you guys so much." And it wasn't one of those "I love you"'s that are obligatory, it was real. That moment will be in my mind forever. We had all been through all that history and heartbreak and yet here we were on a beautiful day and we knew that if nothing else, we would always have each other.

And now my family is back up here again, and we all pulling in that much closer because we need each other that much more right now. It's really hard to deal with it, but it's a little easier when we are all together.


Do you remember when we were just kids
And cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss
Schoolyard conversations taken to heart
And laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not
-Inevitable by Anberlin

I just cheated. About 10 minutes ago. Well a half hour to ten minutes ago. I'm having very conflicting feelings about it, in one sense, I'm happy because it got me to where I want to be, but I feel like a fake, and a liar, and those are two things I try really hard not to be.

Alright, before you start thinking of all these crazy scenarios in your head, I'm going to explain. I had my friend pretend to be me on the phone. Anyone from HCRI would probably smack me if they read this. That's kinda how I gauge things, I think how Candi would look at me condescendingly if I told her I talked to my roommate on AIM while we were in the same apartment, and now I think how all my other friends from there would react if I told them. I can do better. This is why I get upset, I can do better. I was doing so much better, I was having 20 minute fluent conversations on the phone night after night before. I remember one night I had like three twenty minute conversations in a row, I remember I was exhausted by the third one and was slipping up a bit but what I would give to be there now.

And I'm not a cheater. I've only cheated once in my entire life, and I remember it perfectly. It was 7th grade, I was in World Cultures, or whatever form of History you took in 7th grade, and we were taking a test of all the countries of South Africa or something. I don't remember exacts, but I know we had to list all the countries in one half of a country be it North or South or East or West, something. I'm pretty sure it was Africa. Regardless, I wasn't ready. I knew maybe a couple of them, but I think we had a list and we had to pick out which were which, I don't know that specific either. Okay, clearly I don't remember it perfectly. So I'm sitting in the front row (the seats were assigned) and then I see she has a stack of books on the table in front of me, and they have either all the countries that I need on them, or the other group that I don't need. Check yes for awesome, the placement of those books got me a one hundo on that quiz.

It wasn't even real cheating, I was being smart about it.. and I was lucky... it's not like I made a cheat sheet and hid it in my sleeve or something. It was pure luck of the draw and a bit of smarts on my part to pull that off. I'm that person who will make sure my answers aren't showing if we're taking a test. Gah, I rememebr in 9th grade math I sat next to a notorious cheater, and I never ratted him out, but I did not let my answers be visible. Bitch, I work hard for my grades just because you have no work ethic isn't my problem.

I even had the option of usin old Ochem tests to study with for the last test. I could have easily gone to the library and made copies of those and used them as another guide to study, it wasn't even like it was the test it was just another aid. I almost did it, but I knew that I wasn't going to really, I wanted to prove that I could go from getting a 55% on the first test to a much higher grade just by pure will. And I did, on the next test I got an 88%, without any aid. It's just who I am, I love the feeling of accomplishment after working hard for something.

But that's schoolwork. Schoolwork I can handle, I know that regardless I can get it done, bust it out, and be awesome. And I could have been awesome for this phonecall, with a little more time to prepare. I'm just not ready for a semi important phone call. It wasn't even that important, she just explained stuff about the program and asked me my birth date and social security number. But I want to do this volunteering program, I fucked up the one I was going to do last summer because of my speech, I'm not letting that happen again. I guess this is how cheaters feel, they can't let something get out of there hands, be it impending placement into some program or passing a class. It's not even like she would have turned me down I don't think, I mean I'm volunteering. But I don't know.. it's hard to explain because I know it sounds lame.

But last summer I was doing something like this in a Greensburg hospital. I was semi fresh out of HCRI, the slipping had begun but it wasn't anything too terrible yet. And it was a face to face interview, and what killed me was that I wasn't even stuttering that bad, I was on target for a good majority of the time, but I would slip up and then loose the target. But I've been way worse. And I even explained to her, like I'm working on my speech it's not like I'm letting it go, I'm trying here, lady. And she told me that maybe I would feel more confortable volunteering in a lab, and I was actually happy wiht that cause that's what I wanted to anyway, but still, if I wanna work with patients, let me work with a patient, I was just as competent if not more than half of the other people I saw in that interview. I have a head on my shoulder and understand a lot more about the world than I let on, just because my stupid mouth is a bitch sometimes, doesn't mean I can't rise to the challenge.

So things were going fine with that, then I don't remember why but I had to call for something, and I was sitting in my car before going into work trying to leave them a message and just .. not capable of doing it (if I could do that now, i'd bullseye that son), and I saw Nina had just drove in and I got out of my cars on the verge of tears and I was tried to explain to her what was wrong but then I just errupted in tears. So then later, I asked Leah to call for me and leave a message, and in the middle of it, she forgot what to say and started laughing.. and I'm standing right next to her saying like STOP!! What are you doing?!?! And I didn't want her to just hang up cause she already said my name and phone number, and I was like omgggg WHAT are you doing/.?!?!?!? You could clearly hear both her and my voice in the message. So then I was just embarrassed, and thought to myself, well I had that coming to me. They never tried to contact me, my mom and grandma told me to call them and explain, but I was like no thank you that's enough humiliation for me. And I felt bad because my grandma found me the oppurtunity, but listen, you aren't there in the room when people are acting like you are less competent because you stutter.

Next story, so I'm doing an interview for Columbia University. It's at IUP, which I found .. I don't know the word Im looking for, but they are complete opposite schools. Read into that for what you will. But I'm all dressed to impress, if there's one thing I can definitely do, it's dress to impress when I need to, I can look stylish and whatever else when necessary. But I go in there, this is way before I even knew HCRI existed, and we start.. and I'm stuttering, but I'm being confident about it (something I don't really do anymore ..) but she stops and goes "I'm going to bring up the elephant in the room.." and then said something about my speech. But so I was like, I know I stutter, I lived with it my whole life, but it doesn't bring me down (hm reading that I need to get back into that mind set) and I went off on something like I have three months to work on it (?idk how I was planning on doing that haha) I'm fully confident I will be better. But regardless of if it was bullshit or not, I don't know how I was figuring I was gonna do that, but apparently I was all about it, but she was like, well I just know that I had to give a lot of speeches at Columbia and they were hard for me blah blah blah. So I told her, I gave a speech almost every month if not more often in my english class this year, I can do speeches, they may be painful and long and just death, but I do them. I was really giving a case for myself, I remember leaving that interview being all proud and I called my mom and told her all that and she was proud too. But that vibe that I was getting from her was just, "you're not good enough for Columbia." But I knew then and know now that I am a million times better than unfit girl working at IUP was (I am aware that was really offensive).

The Yale interview I went to the guy was so nice, it wasn't any better, in fact I probably showed less of my strong side to him, but he was nice about it. That girl was just such a bitch, regardless I didn't get into either of those schools, obviously, but I still take pride in knowing that I got to the interview stages, which is why it aggravates the crap out of me when I get shot down after the interview. I am better than that. I am better than the people who are working for you.

And now I'm going to show you. I am going to get there and I am going to be awesome. There is no more of this sad Mia because I stutter, I am finally going to take your advice, and this is going to be the last day I cry over stuttering.