I emailed my Mother immediately and she wrote back a couple of hours later to say that she cried with joy when she read it. Whilst I've been the rebellious, troublesome child who cost my parents money and made some bad choices my parents have always marvelled at my resilience and determination. Mum once said to me "You always land your bum in the butter" and it's true - life is never so difficult that I have no hope.

My brother Adam on the other hand has always found life to just be too hard. I am certain he is Aspergers, like David, but he refuses to discuss it. He has never been married, may have had a girlfriend years ago that I didn't know about and he currently boards with his best friend's Mum and has done so for at least 15 years. That family has adopted him, best friend Simon and his wife Sam made Adam Godfather to all three children. (I stupidly said, "Don't they have any other friends?" - he was not amused.) Adam lost his best and dearest friend to lung cancer at 29. They were soul mates and the bond between them was the strongest I've ever seen between two people who are not romantically involved.

Adam used to work as, in his words, a "satellite parking attendant" for Lockheed Martin. He was part of a team that would receive a satellite from NASA and then guide it into a spot in space where it would not be affected by space junk or gravitational forces. He only worked six months of the year (our summer I think?) and received a salary of $60,000 for that six months work. He unfortunately was fired from that job because the boss told him to move his monitor from the left hand side of his desk to the right hand side and he refused. He has not worked since then - some 6 years? He went back to Uni at the beginning of this year after seeing me doing my degree. Even though he was doing what he described as "a real IT degree" (fumes) I knew that he was motivated by me to resume studying.

So now you can see why my Mother cried with joy. She knows I will always make it in life but Adam was a real worry. Now it appears as though things are looking up for him.

Other good news is that I just now resumed contact with a gf that I haven't spoken to in 6 months after a stupid argument. I have realised recently that cutting people out of my life because I'm too scared to deal with them isn't very healthy. She emailed me out of the blue and instead of pressing the delete button which I would normally do I read it, and responded, and it looks as though we will slowly start to get our friendship back on track.

Last piece of good news - I received a postcard from my Mum today - "Dearest t, I will love you always and forever. Mum xxx"

Maybe that's my three good things. Do I have to prepare for the bad now?

t.