prayerful of dreams - 2008-06-28
preschool princess - 2008-06-16
life with my sweetheart - 2008-04-29
the fast approach of four - 2008-04-12
lighting up my own life - 2008-03-08

2002-02-03 - 5:10 p.m.

Dear Mommy & Daddy

I want to come home. I really really want to come home. I know you must think that I sound crazy and you are probably very disappointed in me, But I am tired of being a grown up. I have not done a very good job. And everything is all mixed up, and not at all How it was supposed to be.

I am scared.

When I say that I want to come home, I do not mean to the house, you live in now. That was never really home to me, and since we moved so many times, well, home to me, was that Great big rambling old Victorian house that we lived in, for almost 3 summers, in Rhode Island. Do you remember it? The White one on Sunset Lane, in Bristol ? The one that sat perched high on the hill, that tumbled down to the swirling, rock filled, bay water? I especially remember, at night,how we could see the lights from The amusement park, on the other side of the Bay. I used to sit by the glass window, and stare across at the twinkling silhoutte of the Lit Ferris wheel and try so hard to see the smiling faces of the miniscule people,on the rides, and even though it was dark and miles across the bay, sometimes, I believed I could.

I loved that house, I loved everything about it, like the sweetbriar patch that always hid twitchy nosed wild bunnies and The old hunched over tree in the sideyard, where you hung all of our sun baked laundry on, and most of all, I *loved* the rolling green hill. I used to run so swiftly and freely with my arms spread like albatross wings, all the way down that green meadowed hill. My little girl clothes puffing out in the wind, like little cotton Sails. I would always land gleefully in the strawberry patches, staining myself with berry sweetness, scooping up the extra's and running back uphill, racing into the house, flinging open the squeaky screen door. I would tie on my red checkered apron, and try to cook. strawberry jelly. strawberry pie. strawberry shortcake. *strawberry everythings* . just add lots of sugar. ( and then, more sugar) and you and daddy would try my creations, and pronouce it " de- lish- us" .

All of my very best memories are nestled inside that house. I remember the day that Tara was being born, and daddy took you to the hospital. and I could not sleep in my bed, because I was so excited. I wanted to wait up for daddy, so I could find out if everything was ok. I climbed into your vast bed, the one that was always unmade, because so many kids were forever crawling in and out of it, and I lay there feeling so small, yet safe, smelling your floral scent on the pillow, and missing you, Mommy. and hoping everything was going to be ok. and wondering if I would get a new brother or sister. and then, ten past very late in the middle of the night, daddy came tiptoeing in, and carried me gently back to my own little girl bed, and I looked at him, through half sleeping eyes, and asked if it was a boy or a girl. And if you were ok, mommy. and daddy said " yes, punkin, mommy is great and you have a beautiful new baby sister, named Tara."

Tara came home, 5 days later, and on that daffodil strewn spring day, it was the big white house, that I came racing home to, in my Catholic School girl uniform, my legs carrying me faster than the school bus. I ran through the kitchen, the ripped screen door banging impatiently in my wake, and up the stairs, I flew. stomp! stomp! stomp! stomp! stomp ! My feet echoing fiercely on the wooden stairs. and I peeked into your bedroom, and there she was. My baby sister, looking like a little pink rose plucked from an ivory garden. Tara was asleep in her bassinet, a bundle of white, with tiny pink bowed lips, and the absolute face of an angel.

I remember that moment so perfectly. It stands still in my heart, polished crystal clear. So many memories in that house. So much of us, in that house. So much happy, left behind. So many silly times. Like the time, when you were 6 months pregnant mommy, and the Christmas tree kept tipping over, and making you cry. And I couldn't stand it anymore, so late one night, after it had fallen over, yet again, I dragged the tree out of the house, with lights and trimming and all, and left it on the curb for the garbage men. I threw our Christmas tree away, mommy, and it was the best Christmas ever. When you woke up you were not mad at me, because I had carefully placed all of the presents around the Big Plastic Light Up Santa. and noone cared that we had no Christmas tree. Cause we had each other. And we were happy.

We were happy. And I was never so happy in my life. because my heart was fluffy and pink and unbroken, and I had friends and a wonderful family and a moonlit bedroom, with a slanted roof, and I could creep through the open window, and onto the overhang and lay there, in my little, white eyelet nightgown and stare at the stars. and dream. about the kind of life that I wanted.~someday~ The kind of life that I knew I was going to have, when I grew up. And in those starfilled moments, beneath an ~overflowing with glittering sky~ night, I believed. I believed that when I grew up I was going to be an artist, who delivered babies in her spare time, and who saved the whales on the weekends, and had 2 sets of twins. and a very handsome husband named Blaine or Hunter who ran the animal wildlife sanctuary , when I was away delivering babies.

but that never happened, and I am sitting here, from the painful distance of twenty years, beneath an empty sky remembering all of this with a vague detachment, because it just hurts to much, to realize that I can never re - enter that moment,that life, that perfect feeling of contentment. I was happy. I had roller skates, and a freckle faced tomboy named Liza as a best friend. It was simple and perfect. and now I realize that I can not crawl back into your big unmade bed, that smells mysterious and floral, or fly down the green strawberry hill, or lay on the slanted roof, and wish wish wish myself back into being a little tiny girl. and it just seems so very very sad. Where did all the days go?

I feel like little white pieces of torn paper, thrown impetuously into the wind. All the days of my youth, so carelessly spent. I should have held more tightly onto my dreams. I am trapped between not being able to forget the past, and being so achingly disappointed by what once was my future, giftwrapped and empty, this is the *present* I have given myself.

and everything is my fault. It was nothing that you or daddy did. You gave me strawberryy fields to play in, and all the candy and fairytales I could consume. You gave me that 10 speed bike that I lusted for and a pair of perfect tiger striped Kittens, named Troy And Trevor, and *sometimes* we even ate cheesecake for breakfast! and noone yelled at me, when one airless summer night, I ran down the hill, to the bay, and set free the dozen live lobsters that daddy had brought home for a dinner party. Everyone just ate salted potatoes and corn on the cob, all of our chins dripping with butter and we laughed.

Oh How well I remember all the games that we would play. One of my very favourites was old fashioned family. As the oldest, I was the bossiest, so I would always want to be the mom, and I would make Alyssa be the dad. And she did not like it,not one bit, but she begrudginly went along with it. and of course, Erin would be the big sister and Tara would get to be the baby, and Brett would run around like 2 yr olds do, and I would chase him, and pretend to scold him like mothers do. and somehow he knew that we were playing. Our laughter lives on, in those Bristol hills. It is tucked into the woods, it hangs softly from all the tree branches and hides inside the thin walls of the big white house. It was our happy days. It was all of our *happy* family ways

So, Can you understand why I need to go back? Why I want to be small. and sleep in my room, in the old victorian house. on Sunset lane. In Bristol. In 1980.

and lay on the roof and stare at the stars that were going to light up all my sleeping dreams. and spell out all the promises for a tomorrow that has yet to arrive

Where is my happy now? Please, Please please , Mommy and Daddy, can I please just come home? I want to see the ferris wheel lights one more time, kaleidescoped through the glass window and I want to roll down the green meadowed hill at night, back into the way it used be, when we were happy, when we were a happy little family. Do you remember ? Do you ?

love, ~wendy