I don't know what's going on up at that big table in the sky where the fates of me discuss my life. I have no idea. But I want them to sit back, take a breather, and really think about the necessity of it all.

In the last few months, I have broken up with a man that I now realize was the capital L in Lazy. He used me for convenience, and it was so hard for me to see it, because when he was drunk, he was oh-so-nice. I break up with him. I met someone. Boy, did I ever meet someone. I've known him since 1997 but I never talked to him to the point that it meant anything. I had a boyfriend. I was focused on being calm, acceptable, and more than anything, not-chastised by that boyfriend. People who knew me then say "What were you doing with him? You were so cool." I didn't join the fray at parties. I stayed in my room and as this man I met pointed out, when he came over to the parties, there I was, in my room, sitting on my bed, reading or writing. Avoiding the possibility that I'd have so much fun, I'd be embarrassed.

My therapist said to me, when I told her about him, "Sounds to me like you met a man." A real man. Not a guy. Not a cutie. Not just a boyfriend. He's smarter, and not just the run-of-the-mill intelligence. He has emotional intelligence, and if a girl like me needs something, it's a shoulder to cry on�that's attached to a man with emotional intelligence.

I have some real humdingers coming my way. I'm a mixture of two things: I'm incredibly grateful and happy to have this person by my side right now because he's strong, he respects me, he sees that I need moments where I can be weak, admit I've been beaten down, but also it doesn't rule who I am. However�I also feel that I can't let him see this. It's all too much at once. Suddenly, a bucket the size of continent is pouring down on me and it's doing it at the very moment I meet someone I want to stick around. I'm myself when he's there. I'm crude. I make sick jokes. I want to have sex with other people. I want to cuddle. I want love. I want him to smooth my hair and face and tell me it's okay and then I want him to let me be that other person and love all facets and he DOES. But it is so hard for me to let it go all at once, especially when I have this following list of shit:

Serena. I love her immensely. I love her the way you'd love your heart if you were to let it out free in the world. This is parenting, isn't it? Isn't that what it is to be a mother or father? I'd die for her. Kill for her. I'd do anything to ensure she is safe.

My mother. My mother is drinking again. My mother may be using drugs. My mother sleeps the entire day but will not let someone who is capable take care of Serena because my fucking mother wants the checks from the state.

My sister, Serena's mother. She ran away to Atlantic City to meet a pimp. That's right. She wanted to actually be a prostitute. She left Serena with my mother. That's right. The one that sleeps all the time and calls me to complain about how she can't do things herself and needs help and why don't I just stop my life�the successful, independent one that I've created�and help her? But no. She absolutely refused to help me get custody. Then I finagle it so that my brother and I can share caring for Serena over this last summer. I had a blast. I fell in love with her. Absolutely in love. Her mother and my mother had no problem with her gone for the entire summer. Her mother didn't call ONCE.

Then my mother comes to take her home. And my mother moves to Florida to live with my other sister and her husband. My mother is prescribed methadone (did I mention she was a crack addict and it led to us being taken from her when I was twelve?). My mother invites her girlfriend to live there as well. My other sister is going crazy. Serena's mother stays up north. I say to my sister: that's it. That's fucking it. The cycle has to stop.

Last night I did something completely opposite of what I've done since the day I was removed from my mother's home. I have spent my adult life, my teenage life, defending my mother for all the things that have happened to my sisters, brother and I. Defending her! "I understand why she turned to drugs; I can see how she never noticed I was molested 9 fucking times but different people including the fucking 17 years old male babysitter she hired. I can see that." FUCK THAT.

I wrote a petition stating all the ways in which my mother and Serena's mother are unfit to care for Serena.

When it's down in black and white, it's a kick to the head. It made me pause and say "Why the hell did I wait so long?"

Two weeks ago, I left work at 5:30 p.m. I go through a green light. A van is suddenly in front o me, perpendicular to my car. I slam on my brakes. It's dark outside, raining, the roads are wet. I hit him. My airbags, both of them, deploy. My bumper comes off. My hood dents. I hit my head, I'm a little dizzy. I step out of the car and the short Hispanic man from the other vehicle is barreling at me: "You crazy woman! You run red lights on purpose to hit babies?" I said "It was green." He said, "You go around hitting people through red lights for fun? I have a baby in there!" He kept yelling. "It was green!" I repeated. "Are you okay? Is anybody hurt?" �"How dare you run into me on purpose and hurt my baby! They should lock people like you up in jail!" He kept going and going. I stumbled over to a payphone and called 911 while I see him walking circles in the intersection. I start crying as I'm talking to the dispatcher. I tell him he won't talk to me, he's being belligerent, he insists I ran a red light but I don't think I did. He comes over. "Get off the phone so I can call the cops. Stop crying. You have no right to be crying!"

I tell him I'm on the phone with the police. Is anybody hurt? He walks away. I ask the dispatcher to send someone quick cause he scares me. He comes back after I've hung up, "I hope you told them to bring an ambulance cause I don't know if my little girl is gonna make it."

I asked a man, through my choking gasps, to see if the guy's baby was okay. He came back and said she's fine.

By the time the police came, they asked if I ran a red light. I said, "I don't believe I did, but he's so insistent. I don't know!"

Naturally, they wrote in the report that the fault was mine.

Two weeks later. Yesterday was two weeks. Today I finally get to return the rental car. It cost me almost $400. I pick up my car. That costs me $530.

Have I mentioned my long distance was cut off? I have bills up the wazoo including one my mother started? She wanted to get me a birthday present, so she found a Seventh Avenue catalog that said I was approved for $400 of credit. So what did my mother do? Bought me some pans. Bought my sister, Serena's mother, a CD player. Did she pay it? No. Now I have to pay it. A bill I can't fucking pay! She ran my phone bill up to $210. My lights bill is high.

I'm just lost. Lost. And this man? He keeps telling me I'm okay. I'll be okay. I'll be okay. I'll be okay.

He lives far away and I've been seeing him every weekend, except this last weekend I couldn't. I miss the comfort. The vacation I have when he's here.

I was in bed last night, feeling terrible after writing it all in black and white (14 pages). I couldn't sleep. I felt something under my covers at the bottom of my bed. It was his gray knit winter hat. I put it on. I fell asleep. Whenever I woke up and it wasn't on my head anymore, I found it and replaced it.

I'm moving to Baltimore next Friday (November 21).

I need a rest. I need to start something all over. I'm lost.

But I'll be okay. I'll be okay. I'll be okay. I'll be okay�