I miss you. I miss the way the corner of your lip quirks upward when you smile. I miss the way you hugged me when I cried. Heck, I even miss that stupid sweatshirt you always wore.

But none of this can fix what's going on between us. I have spent weeks poring over your photos on my phone, but that doesn't change the fact that my inbox remains empty. I have spent hours in my room, alone. I have cried until I ran out of tears and I just stared at the wall, feeling nothing. But that doesn't make you feel any closer.

I go through bouts of emotion. I hate you. I want nothing more than to burn your house down. I love you. I want nothing more than kiss you. I am better off without you. I am lost when you're not with me.

So yeah. I hate you. But I miss you, too.

Bridget Hansen is born on August 14, 2008 at 10:38 PM. She is extremely premature, born at only 27 weeks. After three weeks in the NICU, doctors are optimistic about her future. She is taken home. Her family is overjoyed, for she is the first child.

MARCH 2010

Bridget's younger brother Ryan is born. She is very happy and instantly bonds with her infant brother.

APRIL 2024

Bridget gets pneumonia and missed junior prom as a result. She is devastated, but is released from the hospital in three days. Her friends remind her that she can go to prom next year.

JUNE 2026

Bridget is accepted to the James Madison University. She breaks up with her boyfriend of 8 months because they are attending colleges on opposite sides of the country. She quickly makes friends with her two roomates, Layla and Jordan.

APRIL 2027

Ryan commits suicide, leaving Bridget in a state of intense depression. This affects her physical health, leaving her in the hospital for 4 days due to a lung infection. Layla and Jordan get Bridget a dog to help her cope with Ryan's death. She names the golden retriever Bailey.

DECEMBER 2029

Bridget meets Mark Walton at a Christmas party and falls in love. They have their first date at a local coffee shop. Meanwhile, Bridget's father's health is deteriorating.

JULY 2030

Bridget graduates with a degree in earth science and moves into an apartment with Mark, who is persuing a graduate education. She is hired as a consultant at a conservation organization. Bridget's father dies of congestive heart faliure at age 57.

JULY 2032

Mark proposes to Bridget in a park, and she says yes. Mark graduates and is hired as a physician's assistant. Bailey gets cancer and has to be put down. To dull her greif, Bridget adopts an australian shepherd puppy who she names Daisy.

FEBRUARY 2033

Bridget and Mark get married. It is a happy occasion. They honeymoon in Australia, where Bridget becomes pregnant.

JUNE 2033

Bridget faints and Mark rushes her to the hospital. She has severe anemia and hypertension. Despite the doctor's best efforts, she loses her unborn baby. Bridget and Mark move to Oregon to try to get away from the sadness.

MARCH 2035

Bridget starts her own business called Shoe Guru. She hand paints shoes and sells them for a high price. Mark is promoted and is now working the evening shift in the emergency room.

DECEMBER 2035

Mark confesses to Bridget that he had been cheating on her with a nurse. He expressed shame and remorse, so Bridget forgives him. Mark switches to the daytime shift upon Bridgets request.

JANUARY 2038

Bridget is diagnosed with septicemia and is admitted to the hospital for two weeks. Mark comes to see her every day. She is realeased from the hospital, but is still weak.

AUGUST 2040

Bridget is diagnosed with stage 4 leukemia. Mark leaves her, knowing that she will soon die. He begins dating the nurse he had an affair with.

DECEMBER 2040

Bridget dies at age 32. Her mom is the only one present. She takes in Daisy.

People have a lot of opinions on the state of the world. Some are positive, but most are bleak. I’m young, and I am aware that I do not know everything about the world. I have seen good, and I have seen bad. But I am only one person out of the 7.53 billion people who call this planet home. So I’m choosing to dwell on the facts, the few things I know about the world that are true.

Fact: The sea level has risen 7 inches since 1900. This is because our atmosphere is warming. As humans, it cannot be argued that we haven’t played a major role in this. But Earth has been through 5 ice ages. That’s 5 times this planet has been rapidly warmed and rapidly cooled. This phenomenon is not unique in and of itself.

Fact: Between 200 and 2,000 species go extinct every year. Once again, humans are indisputably a primary reason for this. But interestingly enough, we have been contributing to the extinction of animals since humans evolved. Did you know that scientists blame the human race for the extinction of wooly mammoths?

Fact: The sun won’t stop burning for at least 5 million years. If we survive for that long, we currently haven't even reach halfway mark.

For this purposes of this challenge, my 'homeland' is Florida.

Snowbird (noun)- Any tourist from the northern USA (particularly the elderly) who come to Florida during the winter for the mild climate.

Ex. "Ugh! These snowbirds are clogging the highway!"

The North (noun)- Any US state above Florida.

Ex. "She went up North to see her Grandma in Atlanta."

Hurricane Day (noun)- Basically a snow day, but with a hurricane, tornado, or tropical storm.

Ex. "I can't believe we have to make up 3 hurricane days! It wasn't even that bad!"

Flip flops (noun)- Shoes that seperate your big toe from the rest of your toes, beach shoes. Usuall made of foam or plastic.

Ex. "We're not allowed to wear flip flops at school?"

Cannopy (noun)- When trees completly cover the road in an arch.

Ex. "That liveoak canopy has been there since my grandma lived here!"

PubSub (noun)- A sub from Publix.

Ex. "I'm gonna go get a pubsub, anyone else want anything?"

Bet (exclamation)- Meaning is hard to put into words, but is roughly an affirmation of agreement.

Ex. "I'm going to propose to Angie." "Bet!"

The world has shattered

I want to go home

Home

Does not exist

Not for me, not anymore

My world is ending

Ending

Unable to go on

Each breath is a curse

I want it to stop

Stop

I do not know

I cannot feel anymore

There's nothing left

Nothing

The answer

Has always been there

To stop the pain

Pain

When I was 15 I was told by my 'friends' that I acted superior and put others down. And perhaps I did. But, as a 15 year old, I was not willing to walk on eggshells around my friends. In my mind, I was entitled to my own thoughts. It felt like an attack on the very nature of who I was.

The thing was, these people were my only friends. It was a small highschool. Only about 300 kids in total. Everyone fit into a specific group, and those who did not remained friendless.

I was not deterred by these facts. I wanted to surround myself with people who appreciated me and what I had to say. My intellegence was comparatively high, and I was raised to be strongly, almost stubbornly opinionated. These were things that I was simply unwilling to compromise.

From that friend group, I only remained friends with one girl. We'll call her Eleanor. She was more open minded than the others in that social group. Eleanor was not the kind of girl to burn bridges. She'd just build a gate so that she could close herself to you if the need arose.

In my efforts to keep this friendship, I bit back many observations and inflammatory comments.

"That's actually not true, Kronos was most definitely not the god of time. He was the Titan who fathered the Olympian gods and then ate them."

"No, a fish isn't a species, uneducated fool."

"What dumb fuck wouldn't get their child vaccinated."

"You. Cannot. Be. Allergic. To. A. Smell."

All of these were things I most definitely wanted to say, but couldn't because I did not want to make others feel inferior. Which sounds really prissy and rude, but I'm not the one who said it. Eleanor was.

The end of the best book

The end of a long fight

The end of an entrancing look

The end of the blackest night

The end of a productive career

The end of a television show

The end of feeling fear

The end of the month long snow

The end of your uninsured car

The end of years in strife

The end of the morning star

The end of a blameless life

All of these things have started

Just as they have finished