I have this thing with remembering things: I want to remember everything, every significant moment, every exam I do well on, every paper I'm proud of, every person who has left me something to build myself with. I want to remember every time I have seen the sun rise, watched the light filter through the kelp forest or witnessed my mother smile.

I want to write as much of it down as I can before I forget what is going on around me. I want to write it all down in a little time capsule on my computer and keep it forever.

Rarely do I remember enough. Or, rarely do I remember what I wish I could. I wish I would only remember the good, but I find myself unintentionally dwelling on the bad. I dwell on the papers I could have done better on, on the way it is always raining in Oregon, on how much I miss my little seaside home.

Oh, do I miss it, but in the same way that one misses their childhood home. It is never the same once you go back, no matter how badly you want it to be. It aches and feels like it should be home, but something is off.

I realized the things that had influence over me the most, like my mother getting diagnosed with skin cancer four years ago or my diagnosis with Type One Diabetes, are the things that affect my writing the most, as much as I would rather them not. I started to notice medical issues popping up in my writing more – a theme that continually appears in my writing, even now. Even here.

Important subjects in my life bleed into my writing. Cancer peeks out of a dark corner in a short response prompt about hope. Depression sinks its claws into a short essay centered on emotions. Bunnies hop into a blog post about friendship for a writing class, and my sister’s lazy Rex rabbit sulks in the middle of an essay about redemption and what it means to love when what you love cannot love you back as much as you need it to.

I would rather write about the beauty that is in the world, the goodness that is still there, but here I am. I keep coming back to this place of blood and gore and darkness, and I keep finding little glimmers of light. Yes, having a chronic illness is not the best thing in the world, but maybe there is some good in it, like finding kind, lovely people to talk to, like meeting new friends.

I cannot escape the bad parts of past, but I can write about them. I can sit with them in the darkness or coax them out into the light. I can find something in them that is redeemable, even if it is just a cup of coffee at six in the morning and watching the sun rise, or catching snowflakes on the tip of your tongue. There is so much beauty, even here.