Dear Lauren,

Hey. It's been a minute.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to write to you that much. There's no time and when I do the words feel all wrong, so here's hoping that it works this time.

My mom and my dad have been talking to each other and my aunt. They don't even bother to hide it and it frustrates me. I don't want to have to deal with this worry.

My granny's getting old, like all grannies do, but it feels different than what's supposed to happen to old people. She's convinced that my grandpa is cheating on her and is putting all her energy and time to prove it. Who knows, maybe he's actually cheating, but I sincerely doubt it. On top of that, it seems like she's slowly forgetting English. I barely know Spanish, I don't know how I'll be able to communicate when she barely remembers any more.

I talked to my friend about it and he didn't even know what to say. Neither did I. It's hard, it's hard on everyone. My aunt has to drive almost an hour every weekend to be with her and my dad's starting to go once every month. I haven't even started to imagine the toll that's taken on my grandpa.

In news of some of the happier stuff that's happened in my life, though, I got to see my mom's friend's baby. She's only three weeks old and I can already tell the Amazing Grace-o is going to accomplish some amazing things.

I finally got to hold her, and it was one of the most magical things I've ever experienced. It's hard to believe something so tiny and so cute actually exists. I'm particularly excited because I'll be able to be her Jenna.

Jenna's the girl who my mom used to walk over to the bus stop along with her brother when I was still in a stroller and she started to babysit me when she got older. I'm sad I don't get to see her that much anymore.

Holding the baby made me realize several things. One, babies have really soft skin. Two, the world needs to change if we don't want the new generation to grow up with the same problems we did. Three, being a mother must be really hard. You see you child as the small little baby and then in the blink of an eye they're off to college. And finally four, maybe there is hope for this world. I hope the future learns from our mistakes, and maybe we might not have idiots in charge running around the place.

There's another thing that's good that happened. Do you remember that friend I told you that I was venting to earlier? He got his laptop stolen so he didn't really want to come back until one day, a few months later after I sent him a pm forgetting he was gone he responded. Apparently, I was the only reason he was back on. I kinda doubt it, but it still made me feel like I mattered. I'll never admit it to him, but that meant a lot to me.

I don't think I told you about school yet, have I? Well, I'll tell you anyways in case I didn't.

I start the day off with science. Usually it's one of the classes I dread most, only beaten by orchestra, but this year I got the science teacher everyone actually loved. I don't believe my luck. After two years of being shouted at for anything, really, I finally get someone who has a sense of humor. He didn't get angry when I didn't have my lab safety sheet signed for the second day in a row. Instead, he said that it was okay, and congratulated our class on having the most lab safety sheets turned in. I'm actually looking forward to science this year.

Second period is humanities. My teacher is really nice and fun, so I think I'm going to have a lot of fun. Plus, I'm with three of my friends who make me laugh about every five seconds. We started a book this week and it seems interesting, if not a little confusing because of all the old-timey words in there. We're also writing an alternate ending for a short story we read. It's supposed to be dark and vengeful, but I laughed and smiled when writing it with Jen.

Of course, I'm still in Philharmonic orchestra this year. I hate it. I don't know why I'm still doing it. Maybe I'm still holding onto the hope that I'll get Mr. Cook. He was nice, I enjoyed the one year I was in his orchestra. I don't think I cried once that year unlike all the others. It seems like everyone from last year's orchestra has either quit, moved up, or doesn't go here anymore. I still remember when we were practicing and managed to do a complete run through of all our pieces in a corner for no reason. Now all I see are strangers and almost no one from last year. It kinda feels like they abandoned me, although I know I shouldn't be feeling that way. I won't be surprised if the tears come early this year. I'm scared of what'll happen if I get a B in there. It was so hard to bring it back up to an A, and I barely made it with a 91.

Anyways, it's getting late so I'll tell you the rest tomorrow.