Every year when Christmas Break rolls round, I can't wait to get home. I pack up my car, throw on some Christmas tunes, and hit I95 as soon as my last final ends. I'm usually so chipper that the trip seems much shorter and I don't mind the other 'courteous' CT drivers. And the weather almost always seems to indicate the season- usually cold and crisp, suggesting snow at any minute. That's how I've driven home for the past 3 years; excited , exhausted, but happy its all over.

This year was different though. All though my finals officially ended on Thursday, Friday I had to turn in my final paper for my history class, which I should mention I hadn't done yet. ( 10-12 pages, 1 primary & at least 8 secondary.) So I finished all my finals and proceeded to try and do my paper, to get sidetracked by a "business proposition." Now Friday I spent frantically finishing up a response paper and e-mailing it while trying to get out the door, knowing full well I hadn't started my term paper and I also needed to finish my other response papers too! But I had promised my great aunt I would spend the weekend with her, doing shopping and the like, and I was determined to make it there on time.

I left Sacred Heart University and arrived in Centerville, Ma four and a half-hours later. Almost 2 hours later than it should have taken. I had to fight with rush hour traffic, unsafe road conditions, fog so thick you'd swear you were in England, and the fact that they changed the exit sign. I arrived in Centerville to be greeted by a very upset great aunt then lectured for 2 hours on why I hadn't come down earlier- I had been expected early this afternoon. At that point I was so tired I shook it off , unpacked my computer and got about a page into the last response paper I was doing. I talked to a few friends on line for a minute or two and then went to sleep.

My cell phone went off @ 06:30…Ugh! But I'm a guest here , so I just try not to interfere with my aunts daily routine. She's usually up at 05:00, not too hard considering she goes to bed at 20:00… So it was up to get dressed and eat and then off to do food shopping. Before we left she asked me how much money I had on me, so I told her. She then pulls out the biggest mound of cash you ever saw and asks me how much I want. I cried… I told her I didn't need it, which is a blatant lie- I do need it. I couldn't sell back my books this year , which means Christmas is going to be tight.). But I can't take money from her- not like this. But we joked a little bit and left for the store, Afterwards we came back unpacked and Uncle Frank showed up. He stayed a while and I napped since I was exhausted from the drive up. Afterwards we were supposed to go Christmas shopping , yet she didn't feel up to it. So we went out to eat and spent the majority of the night inside talking.

I want to say that she's doing better, but in my heart I know that's not true. She's doing much worse. For an hour today she kept telling me that when we lived in Boston I went to Holy Childhood, and I didn't. I never went there- I don't even know where it is. Then she would keep calling me Maggie or Susan, which I can understand at least, the first is my mother the other a cousin both of which she sees regularly. I think the worst part is when she kept telling me I lived on Hollywood road and where my room was n that house, or scolding me because I couldn't remember Nana Mulvey, who died before I was born. (Jerry was 16 at the time, you should remember her, your older than him….. When I asked her what year that Nana Mulvey died in she said 1970. I said I was born in 1980 - and she said you 10 years old when mama died and you don't remember her?) I was heartsick all day today. I couldn't stop crying, and I broke down in front of her once, that made me feel so guilty. To make matters worse I haven't accomplished a damn thing in the way of this paper since last night. Ugh! I feel so disgusting: my soul aches, my eyes hurt, my stomachs in a knot, and I have an extended deadline- hopefully- for this paper. But it's still a deadline. And tomorrow I go home- home, to my family that's about and hour away from here. After that it's off to work on Monday.

I think I need a massive miracle here to get everything done- anyone got one to spare?