Where you lead, I will follow- anywhere... that you need me to..

So I'm assuming that most of whoever's reading this has already heard.
Maren Louise Candelario passed away on August 16th.

That amazing woman, Mom, sister and friend has left us to be somewhere where she has no pain, no troubles, no problems.
I lost my best friend that day.
My grandma and grandpa lost her daughter.
My aunts Lise and Berit lost their sister.
Many of you lost your friend.

My heart has broken and it hurts so badly, somedays I have no idea what to even do with myself.

I think of her everyday and it hurts. I may smile and distract myself, but almost every little thing reminds me of her. And why should it not? She and I were Rory and Lorelai. We were sympatico.

I was standing in the book line after having waited for my book list and looked at what I was getting and then in my head thought "ugh 3 anthologies? JESUS." then grabbed my phone to call my mom...
Then realized that I couldn't and my heart broke again. I didn't have my phone buddy to call when I thought of little things like that.
I sulked in the book line til I got my stuff, went to try and bought an ethernet cord which then as I was leaving about in tears, I set off the alarms going out of the bookstore in FRONT of the cop.
GOOD GOD NOT RIGHT NOW.
He checked ALL of my stuff and then after a good 6 or 7 minutes sent me on my way.
I sped right over to the counseling center.
I already knew that I couldn't do this on my own and I needed someone who wasn't grieving to help me.
As I was spelling out my last name to the receptionist, I couldn't hold it back any longer and she set a box of kleenex in front of me and proceeded to make sure that I was hustled through the line of people. After awhile I was with a very nice therapist, who heard my story and promised to help me through this. It was nice having someone, a 3rd party as it were, make sure that we could figure out how I could get through this.
And I've figured out a way for myself- I'm writing letters to Mom. Even though I won't have her silly sarcastic comments or her sharp wit anymore, I think it'll help me.

I will get through this. She raised me to be that way... and I will not let her down.
because as my mom said, "Oh honey, Life Goes On."

Just an update....

So it's been a ridiculous week.

Mom had her chemotherapy port put in on Monday Aug 1st.
Then she officially started chemo on Wednesday, making her feel like shit and nauseous with no appetite in sight.
Friday, they took out the chemo therapy machine that she had taken home on Wednesday.
Saturday, I walked into Mom's room, took a look at her and realized but couldn't believe it; my mother had a stroke while she had been sleeping.
Lise and I rushed her to the ER because her face was drooping worse and she lost almost all control in her left hand and leg. Then after a couple of tests, we sat there. And waited...
And waited...
And waited......
Hospitals, I've decided are ridiculous. I'm not a fan, never BEEN a fan. But after the wait, they told us that she had had a series of mini strokes and that they were going to keep her overnight and at least a few days for more tests.
And well it's been 2 days and I've been watching Mom pull through all of these trials. She's incredible, really. She's got pancreatic cancer AND Leukemia, she's officially quit smoking/drinking, AND she just had a stroke and is showing SO much improvement already from it, AFTER TWO DAYS. But on a even more positive note, she hasn't had any pain in the last few days (Thank GOD) and no stomach pains, no nauseousness (well she hasn't taken her Leukemia meds lately so that's proabably why) and overall besides being a bit mad that she can't use her left hand RIGHT NOW, she's in good spirits.
Honestly if anyone could beat all of this, she can.

This, though, has done a number on my family, but as they always do, they've all risen beautifully to the occaision. Lise and Grandma are both absolute godsends. And several of my mom's friends (including Lisa Grotte and Diane for everything they've done and all of the support, the neighbors around the culdesac surprised Mom with a beautiful yard all taken care of and have started a rotation on our yard so mom doesn't need to worry about it, and so much more.) My Aunt Berit is actually on her way now from CA, Lise just brought me up to Boone because I needed to go back to work (no matter how much I seriously didn't want to, I'm doing this for Mom) and I know she's in fantastically amazing hands with my grandma embroidering penguins for something Christmas-related(?) at her bedside, Lise hovering and staring at her while she sleeps and then Mom waking up to see Lise like that and say "Damn it Lise, you need to do that? haha" and for Lise to reply "Um, YEAH MAR-NEN. WHY? IS IT MAKING YOU UNCOMFORTABLE??? HMMM??" with a giant smile on her face. Then Grandma interrupts with an ancedote from when Mom was a little girl saying something along the lines of "well Maren, at one point, I do remember you staring at Lise when she was a baby and looking at us and asking when we need to take it back to where it came from, because you thought Lise was a funny looking alien or something and didn't like it one bit..."
Cue the goofy and loud Danielson laughter and Lise cutting in with another story, maybe about Berit trying to cut off Mom's hair when they were teenagers. A solitary beep from a machine that Mom's hooked up to brings us all back to the situation, but only for a moment.

That's the beauty of my family really. We look for the good, the positivity, the anecdotes that make us laugh and solely we just have to keep our heads above water right now. I honestly cannot imagine what Mom must be going through right now. But she knows that she has so much support and love and prayers and good thoughts and good juju and direct lines to the Big Guy upstairs. Lise kept saying "You know Maren, you send out allllll of this good energy and love and look it here, you've gotten so much back already."

Maren Louise truely is an amazing woman. And I live for her.

So that's the update, if you feel the need for more details you can either call Lise or myself. And I just wanted those who love her like I do, to know that she's okay.


Thank you everyone for everything. It means a lot. <3

Mom and I? We're stubborn... Til we decide it's worth it.

So I've decided that when I get back to school things are changing.

First of all, I've decided that now is the time to lose weight.
I've figured that I need to get myself to a healthy weight and I've let myself get too big as it is. My knees aren't doing well and also, my back is almost always killing me.

So right now, I'm at (sadly) 225.
The normal weight for someone my height and frame size is 147-150.
So I have about 80 pounds to lose. And I think I can do it.
Personally, I need to be healthier considering my mom along with my aunt and grandma (they both have Type 2 Diabetes). But I'm now in the mind set that I seriously think I'll be able to do this. I'm going to be cooking a lot for myself so that I know what exactly is going into my food and also I'm going to be exercising more. Possibly running in the mornings at the SRC and swimming if I get a break during the day. I just know that I have to do this.
I think my that my ..third-way..point is going to be the 5K in October that I want to do with Kim for Cancer Awareness which is roughly...(pulls out calculator)... 26lbs... Well damn. NO- I CAN DO IT. I'm throwing myself into this. I need to do this. I have 2 and a half months til I may or may not be going to the beach. I CAN DO THIS- by the end of October. That's my goal for now.

So another thing that's changing- I'm going to be as positive and happy as I can be, in every aspect of my life. And now that I've realized a relationship is sort of arbitrary at this point in time, so I'm honestly not even going to let it cross my mind. I need to focus on classes and work and Mom.


I might take up the ukelele.
I have one.. somewhere.
But for some reason music is the only thing that really makes sense in my head anymore.
So as I continue to FINALLY teach myself the guitar, I will learn the ukelele and perhaps teach myself how to drive.

There. New goals- new life perspective- I can do this.

Well shit.

I've had this terrible feeling like my head is going to explode yet slowly but surely it's starting to de-swell...

So it's been a rough couple of days for my family and I.
Let's start off with the fact that my mom- the woman who I talk about frequently on here, told me just on this past Friday, that she's been diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer.

This is probably the biggest thing to ever hit my family, ever.
My mom had told me while I was up in Boone, where I've been living for the summer. She came up with my aunt, my grandma and a close family friend Mary-Lou. They wanted to be there for Mom. And so she told me, as I proceeded to break down into choked sobs and get chills even though my apartment was at 87 degrees inside.
I seriously still can't really believe it. At times, I don't want to. I think of all the stories of "so-and-so passed away during their battle with cancer". I'm terrified.
Mainly because my mom said that she would rather I stayed at school and worked on graduating than stayed at home to take care of her. In my mind, I see her at home in pain by herself and that alone makes me want to cry. She assures me that with my aunt 12 houses away, my grandma in town, and all of our neighbors in and around the culda-sac, that she's going to be fine.
When I think about that and honestly just how strong she is, I completely forget that she has cancer... But then something like her having chemo tomorrow hits me and it all comes flooding back.
I try and be a positive person around Mom, I have to be. Because I've seen it in her face how this is hitting her and it makes me sad.
Then something like the fact that there's a study abroad trip through my department in the upcoming spring, hits me and I worry again. Because okay, what if something- god willing something happens, and I'm not there? What if I'm overseas and the worse case scenario happens? I can't stop thinking about that. For some reason, I'm just absolutely terrified that I won't be there. I guess college has done that to me. College makes me feel almost completely detached from my family here in Mo-ville.

I know that later on a lot of these worries will dissipate, but I guess since this is so new and we've been telling everyone what the deal is, it's just hard.
It's hard to accept and it's hard to live with. When in your head, you just think "oh she's just a little sick but she'll get better" but you forget that it's cancer.
But no. She WILL get better. She will get Better. She will get better. She has to. There is way too much that she and I have left to do, and she cannot leave me in this world alone.


But for now I'm left to my own devices- thinking up tattoo ideas inspired by mom, waiting for a job, worrying about my mom and her chemo treatments, being busy enough to cover everything financially, figuring that god loves me because I seem to be the only person that didn't get fucked over by financial aid, figuring that I need to lose X amount of weight so that I can love myself again, wishing that I had a man-type figure to lean on and to hug and to kiss and Good god I miss kissing, waiting for that 'Welcome to Pottermore!' email to come, contemplating what to do around the house and when exactly I should do laundry (probably this morning), hating my phone for it's faulty wiring and no idea how I'm supposed to fix it exactly, trying to help a friend with a very strange breakup (yes it's 4:06am), feeling guilty about a show I dropped so that I could come home to be with Mom because now that particular show has been cancelled, gasping about how great "The Glee Project" seems to be (I LOVE SAM AND HIS DREADLOCKS) and he makes me want to kiss him all the time and never stop, and finally regretting ever continuously liking a particular boy because he only seems to like the girls that aren't good for him. Yeah, that's my brain right now.