Current mood:	okay
Entry tags:	family, richmond

I came back from my trip to Richmond to visit my family a week ago. Every time I go up there, I see that so much is changing. The West End of Richmond's suburbs has grown massive (practically a city in itself now). Two of my little cousins have had babies. My baby sister (baby, hell, she's nearly fifteen god i feel so old) is so tall now.

And my mom looked a lot worse than when I saw her last year.

For those that don't know, my mom has cancer. She has an aggressive strain of cancer that started as breast cancer and has now spread to her bones in her ribs. She's now out of work on disability because she can't get out of bed a lot of days. Her bag of drugs is about as large as a small carry-on bag. She's lost all of her hair again. She has a tumor growing out of her chest that they can't operate on because she's too weak to go through surgery again.

Through all of this, she's a fucking soldier. I don't know if I could keep my head as high as she does were I placed in her situation.

It's nice to see my middle sister has grown up quite a bit. She's the biggest rebel out of the three of us and I think she's taking Mom's illness the hardest. She hides behind a tough-girl image but she's real fragile on the inside. I can relate; I don't like showing my weaknesses, either. She poured her heart out to me the final day I took her out shopping (technically, she took ME out, but I say that because she has her learner's permit and needed an adult to accompany her). She's scared as hell and I believe it. I'm scared, too.

I also hung out with my friends quite a bit as well, including meeting up with a friend that I haven't seen in years. We did that meetup at Capital Ale House (they have THE best burgers omg) with seven of us. Brittany and I hung out quite a bit, including going to Carytown and seeing what our mall looked like now (it's coming back thank goodness). Josh and I hung out at his pub with a couple of our friends and we had a blast.

I can't wait to go back later this year :)