so, so sick.

I suppose I've been sick for a week now. Staying in bed 'til 11:30am isn't really my forte. Nor is having nothing to do except watch documentary after documentary. When will I get to make documentaries, I ask. Anytime you want, I say. But I don't have a camera. Excuses. Excuses.

My stepmother (the source of many bad memories, bad times) is Japanese. She told me a story when I was twelve. (I was complaining about cooking dinner for my brother: Why do I have to cook for him? Why can't he cook for himself?). My stepmother had been twelve or so when she refused her father's orders. I can't really remember what she refused, maybe drying her sisters shoes, or cooking her sister dinner. So, because she didn't do what she was told, her father put her out in the snow. She stood in the backyard, in the snow for a long time. I suppose she never complained again. For some reason that memory feels like my own. Except I stood in the snow for several years under her roof. Being ignored became a regular thing. I'd have to figure out what is was I did wrong (loaded the dishwasher wrong, forgot to clean off the counter.) My dad would always be away on business trips, and I'd stay in their big house, in my big white-walled room and fear her footsteps. I'd stay in my room all day.

I ran away once. But not very far. My dad found my at the bookstore. He drove up in his green SUV. I was talking to a homeless man. "I've helped kids like you before," the homeless man said. But I knew that was wrong. As much as I wanted to believe he could help me, I knew that was wrong. I jumped into my dad's car, crying. He yelled at me so bad. He was angry. But I think he was relieved.

When I complain, I feel guilty. And I think of the snow story. I also think, this life is all I know. I don't know what it's like to be starving. I can imagine. I don't know what it's like to be truly cold. I can imagine. Maybe that's why I'm drawn to documentaries. They let me see into the windows of a life  I can only imagine.