My summer has been going pretty good so far. I have been spending a lot of time with family, which I didn't do much during the school year. Today I got to see my Aunt Cleo for the first since she got really sick. She has Alzheimers, and it has to be one of the saddest diseases. She remembered me, not my name but my face. That's surprising, because often she doesn't remember her own husband. She'll still recognize my Nana though, so often she is called to help calm my aunt down. One story about my aunt made me really see the progression of the disease - Cleo was walking down the road, saying she was going "home" while her husband was trying to get her back in the car. She just didn't remember him. I am thinking I might write about that particular scene. I'm glad I got to see her. Sure, it was sad. But it can't be long until she forgets me completely.

I guess I find a lot of inspiration in my family for stories. You're told "write what you know". I find I know my family the best. And my family has a lot of stories to tell. I don't think they are much more strange than any other family, but in a lot of ways we are unique.

Other than that, I have been thinking a lot about my own past. About mistakes I've made. How I chose to spend my teen years. I graduate next year, and I don't know how I will look back on my time in high school. I know a lot of what happened to me wasn't my fault - it was the fault of disease or toxic medicine. But I wish that I could go back, knowing what I know now, and redo everything. I hate what those medications did to me. I know my mind isn't the same. I can't think the way I used to... sometimes I feel like I don't make sense. And the only way I am able to remember that part of my life is to write it down. It seemed like everything went by so fast. I've started writing those memories down, before they slip away. Only until I write it down will I be able to move on, and stop dwelling on the past.