Dear Grandma:

I learned that writing letters is important when you're grieving or sad. I learned it from an 11 yearold i don't even know. you always used to tell me that letters are the map to the soul. you taught me so much in my short life.. and yet i know your lessons were hardly over.. but before you could teach me everything, something stole your memory away from me..

you were stolen away from me slowly.. ever so slowly. it was painful to watch.. it was painful to handle so i fled. i ran away and i didn't even get to say good-bye..

i never said good-bye.. at least not when you could remember. i never got to give you that one last hug.. i never got to hear that one last story that i wanted to tell my children.

i remember all the stories about grandpa.. how he over came alcoholism just to be with you.. how he died so early and without you. i knew him through you.. i knew him through your words. dad would tell me some stories but yours were so much better.. they made me cry. they made me laugh.. i miss those stories.

you taught me how to be a real woman. you taught me how to be strong.. sometimes i wonder how i do what i do.. living that is. you grew up the oldest of 13 children.. you raised them just as much as your mother did. you out lived all of them except three. every time i find myself complaining that i don't have enough money.. or shoes to match my pants i think of how you grew up.. and suddenly i'm humbled.

you once told me you didn't fear death.. you told me that after grand pa died you were waiting to be with him. i knew how much you missed him. i could hear you cry at night sometimes on your wedding anniversary. i pretended not to notice and i would buy you your lilies.. your flowers.. i sent you some today but you won't know who sent them to you.. i don't even know if you know what lilies are anymore..

i guess you don't remember much anymore.. according to mom.. you don't remember teaching me how to waltz. or teaching me how to make real italian pasta.. you don't remember my graduations or how i almost got married. nothing.. it's all gone.. my whole life with you is gone...

taken away.. and soon you too will be gone..

you are the woman i want to be.. one day.. one day i'll look at myself in the mirror and you'll be staring back at me..

your memory will live on in my head.. in my words.. in my stories.. my children will know of you and their children too. you may pass from this earth but you live forever in my heart.

i love you mimi.. i love you with all my heart..

love,
your little munchkin

there are times when i simply just want to crawl away and never return.. leaving my web page for the ghost sites to pick at after a few years. but i know i can't do it. i know i can't stop doing this.. why? because it's like an addiction. sharing my thoughts with strangers.. it's an addiction.

anyone can read this.. i know that. but i hope when they leave they take away more from it then is actually there. people tell me that my life has made them thank the lord for their own. at times that has made me sad .. the fact that my life is so sad as to make others become happy with their own. sometimes i feel like the news, you know when you see a father who's lost the mother of his 5 children.. you realize that life isn't that bad.

other people have told me that i have inspired them to start their own journals. that's what hits me the most. my words actually inspired someone to start putting their life down on paper.. maybe it's not on the internet but it's somewhere..

one day i'll look back on all of this when i'm 30 and i might laugh.. or i might even still be doing this. most likely i'll still be doing this. sharing my life with you..

it's odd to know that one day i'll be typing here "i'm getting married soon.. god i'm scared.." or one day talk about my children and how they came into the world..

i wonder what kind of person i'll be then.. i hope i'm a better person. i hope this world is a better world. i really hope that i will be here in 10 years..

that would amaze me so.. so.. much.

i waited in the doctor's office, smelling the carpet and my legs were shaking. up and down. down and up. i tried to read some magazine that was sitting in my lap but the skinny models with boy like hips made me want to go wretch up what i had previously ate that morning. not because i was sickened by their bones and skin but that i was sickened by mine.

one might say that it was my need to be skinny that gave me this ulcer. but it came long after the years of punishing my body for trying to be different then the norm. it came when i left the comforts of my room in new york and went in search of something better in another state.

that something i never found and still haven't even found it in L.A. i don't fully expect to find it in L.A. so i don't try.

i am not trendy. my glasses are not hip and my messenger bag is not filled with hand lotion and notebooks. i don't wear nikes and i won't go into gap. i just don't fit in here. i am not even close to fitting in here. why?

because i don't stare at my reflection in the double mirrored glass of the big office buildings. when i run my shorts don't match my shirt. when i smile my teeth are not perfect and when i walk.. my ass wiggles.

so anyway.. i was in the doctor's office waiting. he was late.. it was normal. my watch [that for some reason i had put on that morning] ticked loudly against the silent, stiff air of the waiting room.

my name was called.

i told him about the spicy vegetarian chili and how it probably wasn't the way to go. either was the EXTRA chili powder i had added to it. he nodded and wrote something down. i just wanted to stop feeling the hole in my stomach get larger. but it was then that my doctor looked over my chart and raised an eyebrow at me.

"i'm eating," i assured him.

he nodded.

"i'm not stressed out."

he nodded.

"i'm happy."

"You need to cut down on your stress level. You need to help your bodies chemicals balance themselves out. You have to stop running around and trying to save the world... you also need to eat more.. and don't forget to get some rest," he smiled too hard at me, handing me a prescription for some oddly named drug.

i crawled into my car a few minutes later and cried. but just as quickly ast it started, it ended and i wiped my face off and drove away. somewhere back in that office building was a chart that had my name on it.. it had my past medical histroy on it and probably in bright bold red letters it said eating disorder or some variation of that. they always tell me to "eat more". i could break my arm and they'd tell me to "eat more".

it was and always will be the first [and last] thing any doctor ever says to me. it's like going to prision, getting clean and then getting out. your future employer always has to ask about prior convictions. no one ever tries to realize how far you've come.. or everything you've gotten past.

instead they just keep looking at the past and making you relive it.. day.. after day.. after day.

i washed my soul tonight of my bitterness. the taste of defeat and anger has been washed from my tongue. no longer will i dwell on the evil of the past. it is not healthy. it is not normal.

it's just not right.

when you get bitter, anger is a big part of the way you express your bitterness. you don't care much about yourself or others in the world around you. you make crass comments. you point and laugh at dipsy blonde girls who fall over nothing in the middle of 3rd street. you bark evil comments at those who spend money at the gap. you hiss at the womein in L.A. that try to hard to fit in. you just get - evil.

you basically say fuck it all with an evil grin.

but tonight i made a real effort to not be that person.

i refuse to be someone intimidating and ignorant.

i make this promise on everything sweet and good in my life right now. i make this promise on the lovely air that he breathes in every day. never.. ever.. ever again will i be that way.. i swear.