"Screw top wine… We raised our daughter right."

My dad

My dad just offered me any kind of puppy I want to get me to not move out. He says he’d go out tomorrow, buy it, and bring it home.

What is life.

I just spent the last hour curled up in a ball next to my dad on the couch crying, laughing, and talking about life and dumb things like Africa documentaries and politics. Sometimes you talk about dumb things because it takes your mind off of the hard things, like moving out. Because the fact that I won’t be with him every day literally slapped me in the face so hard that I just broke down. Suddenly I was five again and I didn’t want to let go of his hand on my first day of school.

Nothing is more true than that saying that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Nothing. Becuase as much as I’ve complained about him, as much as he drives me completely insane, I love him more than anything. My mom and my brother, I love them so much and I can’t believe there’s a life that I’ll lead without seeing them every single day. 

Love is seriously the most complicated emotion and I will never understand how something so wonderful can also be a mixture of something so painful and sad in any kind of relationship.

I’m moving out of my parents house soon because my friends and I found out we got the place we wanted this morning.

It’s mostly exciting but I think the next few weeks are going to be the hardest because I know for a fact that my dad and I are going to be fighting.

We kind of just had a fight right now. And he says he needs some “time,” so he might go to Vegas.

This is really just something that I need to do and I know he loves me but I just wish he didn’t have to break our relationship in the process. After all the anger disappears, I seriously feel my heart just, well, breaking.

I’m definitely not a religious person. I’m not even sure if I’m a spiritual person. But I always wear this necklace my grandma gave my mom to give to me when I was old enough — responsible enough not to lose it. 

I wear it anytime I need to do something important. It’s the closest thing I have to a family heir loom. It’s the closest thing I have to a “lucky trinket.” It’s not even really about luck. It’s about knowing that someone maybe has my back. 

I’ve worn her necklace during every important event in my life and a lot of the time I forget it’s there. I’m always just as nervous as I would be without it. But sometimes I remember it’s around my neck and I reach up and touch it and I can’t help but think those are the moments where she was actually watching me. Or thinking about me if there’s anyway spirits have that capacity.

Sometimes people just need extra strength. What’s funny is I don’t even remember the woman very well. But I want so badly for her to be proud of me. I want so badly for her to see what I’m doing and who I’ve become and I just hope that somehow I’m doing that when I wear her necklace. 

"You threw up in your bikini last night? Babe, that’s tacky."

my dad

nobody has faith in me

"You better start greasing some palms."

My mom, on my impending job search after graduation