2:42 p.m. - 06/15/03
tell me...
I called him. It's Father's Day, and a daddy has to know he's loved. It's three days since I found out, and a daughter has to hear her daddy's voice. I love him so much. I'm so scared right now. I can feel this line being cut down my liife, separating everything. Before. After. Before I knew. After. Before it happened. After. Normally, I can find comfort in my older entries, because life moves in cycles, and I can find times I stepped out of similar pain...but the archives look as foreign to me as atomgirl now. Not that this hasn't happened before, too. Before Tracy died. After. Before Sara called. After. I know the lines get fainter, and the ways of dealing with them grow stronger, and pretty soon what's changed grows into something similar enough to what was that you survive. But I don't want to feel bad squeezing my mom and dad into that one word parents, when they don't want to be in one room. I don't want to know that my dad sounds sad, and says, "I really don't think things will change that much. I know it isn't good news, but I really do think we'll be ok," which is better than anything my mom has said in three days. But it's better to be with my mom, who knows how to let me be. If I were at my dad's, we'd both just be sobbing, right? It's better to be here, with the ring I'm sending Sara, Tracy's scarf around my neck, the bear from Silje at my side. It's best to be rooted in my family-becoming as I grieve my family-of-blood, as I root through the wreckage for our old belongings, our old lives.
I don't want there to be a line that says, Before: when we were family. ...After. I don't want that.
Tell me.
I did not do this by loving another home so much more than theirs.
I did not do this by claiming a name from that home instead of the one they gave me.
I did not do this, period.
You love me, and I'm never going to have to pick a side.
It's ok to be upset about this; even if it ends up being good, or better, or just different but ok...tell me right now, I should be crying my eyes out and scared. Tell me I'm still a kid, and it's ok to be upset.
Tell me when you knew. Why you did this now. Who brought it up. Who agreed. Why. If you both knew when he left that time that it was different than any other one. If you knew this was a real "separation." Tell me why you didn't prepare me, not even the slightest bit.
Tell me why you did this when I'm still here, so it's my presence, not my leaving, that seems to blame.
Tell me why you did this now, when I was about to become free, become an adult, become strong enough to go on my own. Why did you have to do it now, when I was still with you? Why couldn't you wait, until I was somewhere else, until I was home?
Why did you break what you wanted so badly for me to choose?
chord
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