Sick As Your Secrets

April 19th, 1999 I remember attempting to tell my mother what was happening.  I was In the kitchen after school. Jill and JoBeth were at ballet. Mom picked me up from  basketball practice an hour earlier. My father was outside piddling around his garden of flowers. Unfortunately, before I can get into the serious conversation with her, my father walks in.  "If it's not the two most beautiful women in the world. And I mean that." His tone was superficial and elevated.  He kisses my mother on the lips and taps my left butt cheek, hard, fast, making a slapping sound. He pauses staring at me.  "YOU ARE just as beautiful as your mother." His eyes are staring into my eyes, looking into my soul, I'm uncomfortable, looking down, away from his eyes. He's completely nude, no bottoms, no top, nothing. I hardly noticed because this is all I knew.  Every single day, Monday through Friday at 5:00 p.m. my father would get home from work, strip off all of his work cloth...

 04/09/1999 “We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” I thought for sure I was going to die in the spring of 1999. It was going to be the end of my survival, my term, my duration, my existence would be then extinct, just like all the former living beasts and ... dinosaurs.  I was 13 years old, vomiting as I ran. The vomit dripped down my chin and onto the roadway leaving a yellow stain. My lungs were burning inside of my chest, like acid reflux. The muscles in my legs were cramping up with each pounding stride up the black asphalted street. My nose and throat felt as if they had been sandpapered raw from the dust that I kicked up in little puffs with each step. The Arizona desert landscape was no mercy, the sweat ran off my broad forehead and into my bright blue eyes. The sweat mixed in with my tears and blurred my vision. Without slowing down, I reached up to wipe the salty mixture from my puffy eyes. Cross Country runner, following in my mother's fo...