Everyone is conspiring against me. My father told me that I should go to Tennessee to be with Josh. Aunt Lu thinks I should go back to New Jersey. My grandmother thinks I'm starving myself. Molly keeps calling me and telling me that I'm nuts. Why is everyone making something that's hard even harder?

Josh emailed me this morning looking for an explanation. "Why the sudden turn around?" He asked. "Why did we go from moving in together to being broken up?"

I've written and rewritten about a million responses to him since then and none of them work. My words fall short every time and he deserves more than that. I know I could tell him everything, but he deserves more than that too. At least for now. I want to make sure that he's settled in Nashville before I explain what's really going on. I just wish I could come up with some sort of answer for him to keep him from hating me until that time comes.

I guess not everything is horrible. Natalie sent a really nice care package down for me. Lots of magazines and goodies - not that I have an appetite for anything these days, but it was a really nice gesture. Her parents had me over for dinner on Tuesday. It was nice to eat a meal without being scrutinized by my grandmother. Tonight Patrick is driving down from Gainesville to take me out. It's almost a three hour ride so it's pretty nice of him to come all that way. He said he wants to help cheer me up.

I had a long talk last night with the nighttime nurse about my father's condition. She told me what I can expect over the next few weeks. He's frail right now - to a scary degree - but he doesn't act like he's dying. He's handling it with such bravery that it's almost hard to accept. She told me about the physical process of dying, how the body slows down and then breaks down. I had never really thought about it before. She encouraged me to talk to her about things any time I want. It was helpful. It is still scary but at least I know what to expect.