There's something inherently beautiful in suddenly realizing you're an adult. Yet it's also dreadfully depressing. Lately, random memories from my childhood have been haunting me, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. 2010 was a bastard of a year, and I know now that everything is different. Nothing is the same anymore. It's almost shocking for me to think my mother is single. My stepfather has gone through two divorces. My brother and sister are part of a broken home, and they have to live with knowing that their parents didn't fake their love for each other, but they also didn't tough it out. I can't say I blame my mother though. I feel certain I would do the same thing in her position - kids or no kids. My Nana is seventy-six. Although she's still 100% mentally present and physically healthy for the most part, the reality is that she's seventy-six. Each time I talk to her, that becomes more evident. It's killing me. When she's gone, I'm gone. She is my soul. She's the best person I've ever known. When I think of her, I think of how excited I used to get when I'd spend the night with she and Pop. Sleeping in between them. Betting Pop that I could stay awake until midnight. Playing house with his handmade chess pieces. Looking through old photographs in the dresser upstairs. Nana getting mad at me for snooping and finding an old picture of she and her first husband.

Living at home, I yearned to be on my own away from the confounds of my parents and curfew and the word "no." Now, being twenty-two, a college graduate, working full time, I long for my mother's voice. I just want to wrap myself around her and never let go.

Sweetness. The American Eskimo puppy my dad gave my mom after she had me. She swallowed a piece of glass in a trash can and died. I was four.

Tiny plastic swords in my drink. Little red drinking glasses.

Lime green kitchen cabinets. Red faux brick linoleum. Grandma Kitchen's costume jewelry. Dressing up in pageant dresses with my cousins.

Holding my baby sister.

Saving her from drowning in the lake.

Her little blue and white gingham dress.

She looked like Dorothy.

There is no one like her//