There is a very good friend of mine (whose name will remain nameless) who is incredibly suicidal. I hadn't seen or spoken to her in a few days and I was getting really nervous so I called her house looking for her and left a message for either her or her mother saying that I was wondering about how she was doing and wanted someone to call me back. While my phone was off I got a message from her mother, in this really faint, saddened voice saying: "Hi this is Mrs. ______ I think you should call me back so we can talk about this in person". My stomach dropped to my toes and I thought I would vomit all over my front lawn. I called her mother back and she told me that my friend had not killed herself, but had in fact been taken to a mental hospital about 2 hours from my house. After consoling her mother who was crying hysterically and getting the phone number and directions to the place I hung up the phone. I flopped back on my denim pillow and pink childhood comforter that I had lugged out to my front lawn for a mid-day nap and cried and cried my eyes out. I cried for my friend and everything that she is going through and I cried for myself and everything I've gone through and I cried because I felt so alone. Since I met this friend nothing has been the same. I have felt understood, stable and less empty. She and I share the same disease and before she came along I had felt that all the symptoms of this disease that I exhibited made me such a freak, only to find that she too suffered from all the same pains of this ailment. She makes me feel more whole and more real.

I was beside myself, sitting indian style and drinking apple juice, and frantically called every friend I have in town. None of them were home. I knew that a night alone with myself would only result in more tears and emotional torture. Just as I was about to pack up my things and head inside the little 7 year old twins Joanna and Maria who live across the street from me called my name from down the street. I have shared many summer nights with these girls, playing Barbies or combing each other's hair. This summer, however, I have been so consumed with myself that any time they ask to come over I tell them I'm too busy. I stood up and walked towards them as they ran screaming "Laura! We love you!" They greeted me with hugs and kisses and one was desperate to be held. I hugged her to me intensely and almost didn't know if I could ever let go. I thought I would start crying again. Just then this little boy Dylan, 4, who they had been playing with ran up to me. "Hi" he said, "I'm Dylan" and he came over and hugged me. "Can we come over?" they all asked. I still had to call my friend at the hospital. "Give me five minutes" I said.

After trying to reach my friend and getting non-stop busy signals I threw down the phone in frustration. I was desperate to talk to her. I went over to cross the girls and Dylan went to grab my hand. "Dylan's not allowed to come" Maria spouted knowingly. I told Dylan to go ask his mother if he could come and she said no. I didn't hear her say no, I knew by the high pitched screaming that immediately skrieked from the child as he started throwing around a lawn chair. I didn't know what to do so I crossed the girls over to my front lawn and we started playing games. Not too long after Dylan ran down the street so he was in front of my house, but still across the street, and started crying "Laura please I want to come over". My heart could hardly stand it. His mother came along to scoop him up. Before she could take him away I approached her.

"Hi I'm Laura, I'm your neighbor, we've never met".

"Hello" she said, "I'm Suzanne"

I wanted to somehow convince her that it was ok for her to let her son come play jumping games over at my house but I didn't even begin to know how to go about doing so. Dylan kept crying and I said "You know what Dylan? When we're done playing at my house, we're going to come over and play with you at your house!" He seemed to be happy about this. I couldn't wait to make him even happier by going over there.

I crossed the street and told the girls we were going over to Dylan's. They were reluctant and said they wanted to play Barbie's alone with me. I picked them both up, one on each hip, and carried them right over. I knew it was important for me to make a good impression on Dylan's mother so that he wouldn't constantly be told he wasn't allowed to participate in what his friends were doing. We started out playing frisbee. Then I introduced Dylan to the jumping game that the girls and I had been playing, in which one or two people lie down with their knees, feet or arms up in the air and the other one has to jump over them, and he positively loved it. Then we played this silly game where I put one of the children on my shoulders and then pretend they have vanished. I go about asking all the other children and even parents on the block if they have seen this particular child, who is, of course, sitting right below my head. My father even goes so far as to say that we should call the police to report a missing child and all the kids giggle incessantly over this.

For the next few hours we played tv tag and freeze tag, hide and go seek, spud, duck, duck, goose, basketball and red light, green light, one, two, three. Dylan's mother Suzanne watched us play for the first hour and then, I guess, decided to trust me and went inside. At 9:30pm the parents came to collect the children and get them ready for bed and I was glad because I was exhausted. Suzanne thanked me for coming over and including her son. After giving everyone hugs good night Dylan announced we would start tomorrow morning with baseball. Good grief!

I trekked back north over to my home and after wiping the sweat from my face from hours of child's play, bundled up my things and went inside.

2001-07-28, 1:22 a.m.
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