Today, my friends and I are having a great vacation in Hawaii. I’m so honored that they all decided to join me. They assume the trip is in celebration of my impending victory with cancer. I don't have the heart to tell them my doctors told me it’s terminal and there’s nothing that can be done. I don’t want to spoil our time here. I only want to see their smiles. Because it’ll be the last time I see most of them. MMT

Today, my mom and dad are selling my home so my mom can move in with her new husband and my dad can move in with his new wife as I leave everything I've ever known behind. MMT

Today, I miss who I was. I miss the girl who had something to be proud of. I miss the girl who was genuinely happy in her own skin. I miss the girl who was innocent and free and thought for herself. I miss the girl who would look in the mirror and not see every flaw. I miss the girl who didn't let the negative words of others bother her. I’ve transformed myself to make everyone else like me. But now I don’t like me. I miss who I was. MMT

Today, after one of my 11th grade students told me she hated high school, I asked her, “Why?” She said, “In this school, the popular kids are the rudest, the nicest kids are the loneliest, and the girls everyone thinks are pretty spend more time putting on makeup every morning than they do studying. And although I force myself to smile when I’m here, I sometimes cry in the mornings because I dread coming here.” MMT

Today, one of the biggest bullies in my school – a girl who has mercilessly bullied me for the last 2 years – hung herself. Her final Facebook wall post reads, “I was always the weak one. I’m sorry.” MMT

Today, before he crashed his motorcycle he sent me a cute email asking me out on a first date - something I’ve been waiting for over a year. I just received the email on my iPhone - about an hour after the emergency room doctors informed his family that he’s now medically brain dead. MMT

Today, my chemo therapy is making me lose chunks of my long, strawberry-blonde hair – a physical attribute I’ve always been proud of. This afternoon I had a male nurse shave my head because my hair was so patchy. As I was tearing up because it was hard seeing the rest of my hair fall to the floor, the nurse bent down in front of me and sincerely said, “Gosh, you have the most beautiful eyes.” MMT

Today, I know three people who attended high school with me who committed suicide in the last ten years because they were struggling financially. MMT

Today, when I scolded her for answering her phone in the middle of my class she began crying, ran out of the classroom and didn’t return. Her father called me this afternoon to apologize on her behalf. All I can remember him saying is, “Her 9-year-old brother didn’t make it out of surgery this morning.” MMT

Today, I'm happily married with a family. But I still dream about my long-term college girlfriend all the time who died in a car accident on Valentine’s Day in 2003. MMT

Today she died when her car crashed through a guardrail on a bridge and plummeted 200 feet into the river below. Everyone is calling it a “tragic accident.” But yesterday she told me she was "tired of life" and wanted to “drive her car off a bridge.” I didn’t think she meant it literally. No one knows this but me. I don’t know what to do. MMT

Today, a month after the car accident that almost claimed his life, he told me that the rude and ignorant comments he’s overhears people say about the burn scars on his cheek and neck always hurt worse than the accident did by itself. MMT

Today, I learned the hard way that the worst part of keeping an intimate relationship a secret from your family and friends is that when your beloved dies in a car accident, you’re not supposed to cry. MMT

Today, my mother’s 20 years of smoking cigarettes is finally catching up with her. Every time I hear the unhealthy gurgle of her coughing, I cringe and cry on the inside. And she knows it. But she doesn’t quit. And now that I’m pregnant, I just hope she’s around long enough for my son to remember her smile. MMT

Today, I spent my 40th birthday in the emergency room praying for my son’s life. I’m still here waiting for an answer. MMT

Today, the four of us laughed together for almost three straight hours as we reminisced about good times in a conversation that began in my dad’s hospital room after his doctor said, "Your cancer is spreading. There’s not much more we can do." MMT

Today, a year after his death and four months after hers, I still can’t bring myself to delete my parent’s cell phone numbers out of my iPhone. MMT

Today, I burst into tears when the vet told me she had terminal cancer. But then, sensing only my sadness, she wagged her tail and licked my cheek to comfort me. MMT

Today, as I gazed at all the photos on the photo board I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that she and I had put it together for our high school graduation party, not her funeral. MMT

Today, when my phone rang with his number I expected to hear his voice, not the voice of the paramedic at the scene of the accident. MMT