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I slept in the car today - for about an hour and a half. The sun was streaming through the windows and all of the heat from the light seemed to fall right onto me. I was still dressed for Michigan weather - old blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a black and white sweater - it was too much and when I woke up, I was hot and my hair was sticking to my neck. My cigarette pack, crushed from the trip, was in my lap and I wanted to smoke, but I was thirsty and kept putting off lighting one up. I knew that it wouldn’t taste right, they never do when you are so hot. My dad was driving, as he had for the whole trip. He wore sunglasses, but I could see behind them and he was half crying. He’d been like that for most of the day. Our morning started out rough, with me cornered in a hotel room. He knows I tried to kill myself last week and I am too ashamed to discuss it with him. Too ashamed and too tired from the last six months, which have left me exhausted and empty. I told him I could only handle one thing at a time and that right now that one thing was getting to Florida. Everyone acts like it’s this land of milk and honey for me. Like going there will magically fix me. Like the sun will shine down on me and I will remember what it is like to feel whole and right again. I spent most of the early morning telling him that everything would be ok, but it feels like a lie to me because I feel like I have died.

After I woke up, my dad tried so hard to be positive. Every couple of miles, he pointed out some sight - a new development that is being built, a restaurant my mom likes, the store they like to shop in. I had my earphones on, listening to some inane book on tape, anything to distract me from the truth that was all around me. I don’t think he understands that I don’t care about how long it took for them to build the newest strip mall, that I could care less about the plans to widen the old two-lane street that fronts their development. I’m not just disinterested in this information, it grates in my ears, a reminder of the life I am now faced with. Still, I know he needs to hear me be interested, or maybe he would be satisfied if I would fight with him. I know he can’t stand to see me beaten as I am now. He alternates between calling me his ‘dear, sweet Katie’ and reaching over to put his arm around me - something I used to love but can no longer stand. I don’t want anyone touching me right now, except late at night when I am trying to sleep and wishing you were lying next to me so I could try and burrow into you, like Rook used to do to me when she was scared. I know he needs to hear my voice and so I speak. The words sound thick and slow to me. Really, I have nothing to say about anything and I can hear the disinterest in my voice “it took them three months to open that store? Wow” and “it really is in a restaurants best interest to offer wi-fi these days.’

There was hope when we first got off the express way. Lots of malls and businesses - lots of places to try and find work. Even if it is only flipping burgers at McDonalds, I need a job. We drove by a Cracker Barrel “Mother and I stop here quite often’ was the blow by blow for that block. I have always loved my dad’s habit of referring to mom as Mother when he speaks about her to any of us kids - it seems old-fashioned and sweet to me. He explained we had about 30 miles before home. As we drove, my heart sank. After the initial express way exit “Every store in the world in less then one mile” the landscape began to change. It seems quite a dingy place, old and worn with a few new places sprinkled in. It seems white washed to me and reminds me of an old shipping town from up north somehow. We passed flea markets, beat up trailer parks, RV storage lots. The place seems cheap and trashy somehow which confuses me. For the most part I have lived comfortably. My parents bought a house in Northville when it first began to be developed. It ended up being THE place to live. I remember my senior year in high school, they raised the price of prom tickets and I joined the student group trying to fight it. Tracey, the only ‘Goth’ in my white bred, private school world, looked me dead in the eye and asked me why I was complaining “your from Northville” she said to me snidely. My folks were not rich, but they were comfortable. Mother only went back to work to make extra money to send John and I to parochial schools for our high school years. She did this not so much because she wanted us in catholic schools, but because when Leslie and Sally went to Northville High School, the public school in town, it was rated the worst school in the state for drug use. By that point, there were so many wealthy families in town, building million dollar homes that there was an abundance of kids with nothing but money and time on their hands. After Leslie and Sally’s drug and alcohol problems, John and I got carted off to private schools. The thing that is funny is Leslie and Sally, but Sally especially, were mad about how ‘lucky’ John and I were - and neither of us wanted to be in private school. I hated it when I started - plaid skirts, no boys, nuns - I would have killed to be in a normal school

As we got closer to my parents house, there was another change in the landscape. Apparently their development is HUGE. The gentlemen who owns it actually owns large tracts of land on every side of it and has taken great care to landscape it and make it look lush and green. Clean. The trailer parks and RV lots are replaced by brand new malls, fussy restaurants and golf courses. It ends up the next two towns over are ‘yuppyvilles’ and doing well. There is lots of new construction and development. Maybe this will be ok.

Before we turn into the development, dad rubs my back and tells me not to be afraid of seeing mom. Afraid? I have nothing left to be afraid of. I tell him not to worry and think about what it was like to be a little girl. I loved to touch people. I was an extremely affectionate kid. I sat on my mom’s lap until I was 23 and only stopped then because of her poor leg - my poor mom is always hurting. I remember having dinner with the Nolands, who are friends of my parents from years ago. I call her Nomi and him Jim because I couldn’t say their last name when I was little. Nomi and Jim were a huge part of our lives. She was waiting on our front porch when they brought me home from the agency and they have been at nearly every birthday, graduation, confirmation, and big event in my life. I would go stay with them on the week ends sometimes because Nomi only had boys and so much wanted a little girl. She would do my hair and let me eat sugar cereal (we were not allowed that at home). Anyway, when they would come for dinner, Dad and Jim inevitably fell asleep in the family room. I would wake them up by crawling on their laps and kissing them. I used to love to hold my dad’s hand and only bought shoes that made me taller then him. I used to kiss my mom and hold her to me until she would pull me away. Used to means even the last time I saw them - before the enormous failure. I don’t understand why now when my dad rubs my back in the car, I make an excuse to lean over and get my purse, or when he hugs me, I find myself standing stiffly and patting his back like an idiot or why I have to remind myself to go kiss my mother because I know if I don’t she will know something is wrong.

I have always equated physical contact with love. I have always felt the most loved when someone is touching me, or I am touching them. I used to sit on the couch next to Adam when we took D & D breaks and I always put my head on his shoulder. When Brandt and I go bar crawling, I always hold his arm, even when it isn’t icy and I don’t have to worry about falling. I still kiss John good night every night. It broke my heart that Mike didn’t like kissing and that Rook hugs are about as rare as rare can be. I love holding your thumb, because it means you are touching me, and as an added bonus, the way your hand swallows mine up makes me feel safe.

There is a huge renasaince fair in Michigan every year - yes dork city - complete with a King and a Queen, jesters, sword fights, and 8 inch long chicken legs to eat. One of the vendors there each year does wax casts of hands - you walk in a circle, holding the hand of who ever you want to get your hand cast with. Every 1 minutes or so, you get to this pot filled with melted wax and dip your hands in. After about 20 dunks, they slip it off and put it in ice water to freeze it. I would love to do that with you. I realize you would hardly be able to see my hand at all, but I like the idea of having a physical representation of holding your hand, which is one of my most favorite things to do with you.

We finally pulled into the driveway and I took a deep breath before going in. I feel broken and dead inside. I have lost everything. My entire life can now fit in the trunk of my car. There is no place I want to go that will take me and I know with certainty that I cannot live here. I feel like it will kill me. When I talk on the phone to you, I feel like there is a small part of me that is alive, somewhere deep inside my heart (and yes, sometimes that alive feeling is in a much naughtier place, but hell we should be happy I feel alive anyplace). I don ’t know what it is about you that makes me feel that way, but the feeling is short lived - mainly because we can’t talk on the phone 24 hours a day and I should not expect you to keep me going, no matter how much I finally want to lean on someone. When that feeling goes away, the reality of my life sinks in, and I am left feeling alone, weak, invisible, stupid, stubborn and beaten. I worry that feeling will never leave me, not really, that even if I get a job, a place to live, and find someone (please you) to sleep next to, it will still be there lurking inside of me waiting to swallow me up again.

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