 The world has always brought me comfort. Maybe because I spent a long time in a religion that forced me to believe that I was “not of this world,” or maybe because believing in a Creator made me want to see everything They created. I don’t know. Probably both.
 Sometimes, people don’t stick around for the hard times. For one reason or another, good or bad, they leave you behind. You can be angry or you can accept it. If you’ve gone to enough therapy, sometimes you can do both.
 I should have been more emotionally prepared. I should have taken a few deep breaths, but I didn’t. Instead, I walked into the Frida Kahlo Museum, excited and giddy to see her art in person and the home she lived in without thinking about myself. That’s usually fine, but not this time.
 I think about buying a pack of cigarettes all the time.
My body feels no need for it, never has, but my little heart remembers the feeling of the inhale in my lungs. It flutters at the memory of a second of ease after it all hits my blood stream. My lungs aren’t so fond of the memory.  I burned a sauce. It was a simple sauce: Can of expensive tomatoes. Stick of butter. Whole onion, halved. Simmer for 45 minutes. 45 Minutes later it was burned.
 It was one of those national holidays, the kind where none of us had to work. All my parents' children still lived at home and we were all around at the same time doing different things with our lives in different rooms of the house. It was hot outside, but my dad was building a shed to put all his toys in. He always had to work on his day off, the same familial curse I continue to carry.
 Family is everything, or supposed to be. They’re the ones that are supposed to stick by you, do right by you, love you endlessly and unconditionally. But we all know that’s not always the case.
 Ever since I can remember, I’ve known I was going to die. I don’t mean it in the way that we all know it to be true. There’s not very many people that still believe they can live forever, although there are plenty that are trying to prolong their lives as long as possible. I mean it in the way that I feel death in my bones, my skin, in every hair on my head… It’s ever present in my frame of view, like a cloud hanging over my head that lowers and raises itself in my atmosphere as it pleases.
 In the end, all of those who were to leave the rest behind were supposed to stand in the front of the room, in front of everyone who has known us since the start, and answer one simple question: How do you want to be remembered when you die?
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