Love is simple.

I didn't go to school today, and I felt horribly guilty until 3:45 in the afternoon, when I knew that (had I gone to school) I wouldn't be in class anymore anyway. In fact, throughout the hours I found myself tracing exactly what would be going on in the classrooms in my mind. This isn't out of nostalgia or any kind of love for the school, teachers, or fellow-classmates. Quite the opposite, I think. It was almost out of some kind of fear; guilt, perhaps. I wish my conscience wasn't so loud when the wrong it's complaining of wasn't my fault anyway. Damned thing.

All I keep thinking about is my French teacher calling the role and looking to where I usually sit (she does this instead of ever actually saying my name). She wouldn't see me, so she would look around briefly and call, "Laura?" No answer. "Laura n'est pas là?" And then she'd put on a sad face and put the first 'absent' mark of the semester on my namecard. How I hate those name cards.

I love my mother, though. I think mothers are wonderful. This sick-business has given me a lot of time for thinking - most of it's been nonsense, but still - and I've come to realize that I really do love her. Not that I thought I didn't. It's just that I've always thought of myself as a rather independent person, until something happens to prove otherwise, but then once THAT'S over and donewith, I'm back on top of the world again. I have a good memory, but I'm also very good at blocking out weak points in myself. I come from a long line of very intelligent, very strong people; the trouble with being intelligent and strong, though, is that you happen to become more of an elitist than anything. I suppose I've always felt that if I weren't independent, I'd be out of place. Hm. What an odd sentence.

In any case, there are always those moments when, no matter how tough you think you are, you really just want your mother to sit on the foot of your bed, put her hand on your back, and sit there with you. Maybe even sing you a song. I don't know when I got old enough for Dad and Mom to stop coming up and singing a goodnight song every night. I also don't know that I should complain, seeing as how most children never got that. I did, though, and I miss it. Being sick sort of makes me become a seven year old again. Mom, who for the last six or seven months has been at Ami's every day from noon to dinner, came home early today just to be with me because I'm sick. I don't know why, but I feel incredibly safe and satisfied knowing that she's in the next room.

As I've GOT to go to the college tomorrow, though, I'm going to enjoy these last few hours of being seven... got to grow up in the morning.