I feel really numb.

My cousin, who has been my best friend and almost-sister my entire life, the person who's been there for me for always, who knows everything about me and loves me regardless, she's dying.

Not for sure, but things are bad. Last entry I said the cancer was back. A week later I know the cancer has spread basically everywhere and it's Stage 4.

I've been struggling to write this entry for days because I don't know what to say. Is there anything worth saying that isn't obvious?

Someone I love very dearly is very, very sick and I'm very, very sad about it.

The future is now very uncertain, just in terms of... how my life is going to be, ten, twenty, fifty years from now. In all my stories (and real life plans), my cousin is heavily involved with my life, is Godparent to my children, and basically the one friend and confident that can't ever escape because we're related and it's pretty damn hard to step away from that. That's what is supposed to happen, that's the life path, our children are supposed to be like us, raised together, because there is very few things I'd regret more than my child not having someone as special as Lizzy to play with and know and grow up with, because it certainly is a relationship that is one of the nearest and dearest to my heart.

Obviously I also spend a great deal of time grieving for Lizzy specifically, not just the Lizzy shaped hole that I'm scared might one day exist, but the thing is, the thoughts about how this affects me-- that's the part I can work through, learn to deal with. I can never really do that with the actual Lizzy part, though of course my first priority is her and doing everything I can to make her life easier/better/happier, if I can. I can't even imagine what she's feeling or going through but I'll be spending a lot of time with her this week.

This year really is strange. It's the highest highs and the lowest lows, truly.

I can understand how some people can feel that God is punishing them for being happy, when something like this happens. That's how I feel.

See, I'm an atheist, truly, it's the only rational way I can think about religion. But even so, I'd pray every morning and night if I thought it might do any good. I might anyway, because I'm desperate and I'd never stake someone's life as collateral for my certainty that God doesn't exist. I don't know, mostly it'd just be comforting to know that is tragedy is going to occur, that there's a reason for it, a greater plan.

I'm not saying I believe that, but I'm saying it'd be nice if I did.

So yeah, that's been my life this week. Hope things are going much more smoothly for other people.

This week has been the WORST.

Okay, I'm kidding. I just worked a lot and had a lot of uni due. Like, I was at work yesterday morning, and I was stressed about getting my essay done and my Boss said something that wasn't even mean or rude, just a bit sharp, and I just felt like going home and crying, it was silly.

It's also just been a hard week because I haven't had time to see a lot of friends and I think I really miss Exeter for the student living and the social aspect. Like, I always felt weird if Jen and I didn't see each other for a day, because that's weird when you live together. But now I'm at home, I know I'm having a lot of conversations with people, especially my Mum, but it's different.

I think this term I just feel more out of place, in terms of knowing who I am and where I fit and who I want to be and what I want to do. Uni has been much more difficult than I remember but I have no motivation for it at all. I just want to be a primary school teacher. I don't know where I want to live or where I want to be after graduation. I suddenly feel like I've leveled up and soon all my friends will be graduating and getting engaged and I can't predict what lies beyond that, in that murky next stage of life especially when our life stages begin to grow more out of sync.

I'm not doubting any friendships, I just can no longer predict them.

On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, the boy giving me butterflies continues to do so. I like to hope that I'm being very mature and rational but that fact is, he makes me smile for no reason and I know it's just because I like him.

I know that I have had crushes since you know who. Kind of. There have been a few girls that I considered myself interested in, and a guy I definitely would have slept with if he'd asked/ flirted at all, but this is different. It's like being back in high school. I mean, it would take him like 2 seconds to get into my pants which I suppose isn't very high school, but just the giddy excitement, that's high school all over.

In other bad news, actually, the worst news of all by a long shot-- the only reason I didn't write it first is I only just found out and I wrote the rest of this this afternoon, is that  my cousin, who has been battling cancer all year and was given the all clear last month, found another cancer today. So that's shit.

Fucking cancer. I'm a lot more scared this time. Last time I was on Exchange and I was worried, but it was distant and I had faith that things would turn out right. And for the most part, it was quite simple. This time, not so much. It's just not fucking fair. My cousin is the greatest. She's the most wonderful. And maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here with this, but I cannot imagine my life is she wasn't here to be in it.