2002-11-29 || 12:16 p.m.

|| holiday, hand family style. ||

i am pretty sure i have confirmed my parents' suspicions that their daughter has the hand family crazy gene sailing the lofty seas within the folds of her silly brain. as in. i have been crying uncontrollably for the past two days. as in. there was thanksgiving dinner and the tradition of trivial pursuit and the auntie and uncle and mummy drinking too much wine and manhattans, with me seated at the corner trying very hard not to cry. i almost made it through the day, and then at approximately 10:37 pm, while dropping my parents off in the loading zone of the ramada inn, i cracked. mum from the back seat: 'we'll see you tomorrow.' i nod. she leans in to kiss me on the cheek and the lovely hand daughter water show begins. 'you're not okay,' she says, rubbing lipstick off my cheek. me: 'no. i just want to go home.'

and i cried and cried and cried.

and i can't say why. i couldn't say while sobbing in the car on those two blocks home, or wandering around the flat, or shoving thanksgiving food in baggies into the overstocked refrigerator.

the presence of my parents has this marvelous affect on my tear ducts, where it gets to the point where i cannot complete a sentence without pushing my hand to my face to stop all that crying.

and i went to bed. i woke up to hannukah songs on my alarm clock. i got dressed and planned my route from hotel to kelly's house to muir woods. i picked up my parents and couldn't talk for fear of cracking again.

and they are such nice parents, used to this sort of thing, and offer scones and keep their comments about npr to themselves. we pick kelly up. we are standing in her tiny bedroom and dad asks which car to take and i start. i think i should just go home, i say, because i can't really talk right now without crying.

and i worry about what they think. jenny is too emotional. there is always ssomething tragic going on with jenny. we know she broke up with her boyfriend and we were instructed not to talk about it, but it seems like there is Always Something. and they remember the conversations about seeing Someone. Therapy and mood disorders and all that.

dad walks me back to my car. we are standing on the corner of oak and webster, and that was me hugging the very nice man who is not sure what to say. that was me crying openly and apologizing over and over. he says they can take a taxi to the airport tomorrow. he says they'll call later to check on me. he says take it easy and read a book and he lets me hug him for too long, he lets me get the shoulder of his shirt all wet. when i pulled out of my parking spot i saw him in my rearview mirror, walking in the crosswalk and watching me leave, making sure i am obeying traffice laws, making sure i am alert enough to dodge approaching cars.

i am a fucking crazy person. and the minute i got on the freeway heading home i wished i had stuck with them, however moody and unstable and sobbing.

i love my parents very much. i don't know why this is happening. i don't know if it's parenty stress or because i miss them so much or because i've had all this shit shoved in my brain without the time and energy to spend fixing it and the minute there is something a bit emotional going on it flashes into a flood.

i don't know.

but i hate that they are here visiting and i am here at home alone with my shoes on not sure what to do now. that i'm not with them sitting in a car listening to dad's sciencey jokes or the way my mum hums along to effing led zeppelin on the radio. i don't know i don't know.

and the worst of it is i am pretty sure this cloud will have lifted and sailed away the minute they have boarded their plane for home.

holidays.

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