I dropped off my letters, cards and other shit I made him on his doorstep before I went to work, and I don't think that was very good for me, but I had to do it. I can't remember the last time I drove to this house, but driving there set something off in me. Reminded me of cold, clear fall evenings, driving over to study with him (or to tell his parents we were "studying"). It reminded me of driving him home from my house on those nights where he'd fall asleep on my couch, holding me, while we watched late-night talk shows. It reminded me of picking him up to go to school, on those rare days Mom left the car at home and I was too damned lazy to walk the 5 mintues. Deb (the therapist) says that sometimes, you just have to hurt yourself again (not physically, emotionally), and even if it seems stupid, it's just what needs to be done. I know that seeing him makes me upset. I know I feel badly when I go to a party and see him there, and after the intial "Hey", he ignores me for the rest of the night. I know it only ends up badly every single time, yet I still put myself in the situation time and time again. She says that sometimes, what you need is to be hurt again. You need to feel a certain amount of that in order to finally realize what you want. I hate thinking that I'm still in that stage, of re-hurting myself over and over again.

Seconds passed today where I thought of cutting. I can't decide if I was thinking, "I want to cut", or if I was thinking, "Yeah, I remember when I used to cut". I don't think I was considering doing it, because I can't anymore. I'm not in the right frame of mind to, thank God. But the feeling was quite strange. When I'm done with the razor in the shower, sometimes I hold it in my hand a little longer and observe my left arm, and all of the dark pink lines that run horizontally across it, and I wonder if I'd still have the guts now to nick myself a tiny bit, but I don't, so I place the razor back down and rid my mind of self-injuring thoughts. At least until my next shower.

This afternoon I wrote in my journal (my real one) while listening to Genesis, a group that apparently a very small minority have even heard of, which I find utterly strange as I grew up listening, singing and dancing to them. Phil Collins, before he went solo.

From the time I was born, my house was filled with music. There was never a moment in time when records, and eventually CD's, blared throughout our home, and my father wasn't lying on the floor beside the stereo reading the record covers, and my mother wasn't in the kitchen singing to herself, and my brother and I weren't dancing around the rec room like maniacs. My father used to work for a recording studio, doing the sound. He even met John Lennon, before I was born. Our walls downstairs are proudly decorated with encased silver, gold and platinum records. My father used to play the guitar, and my mother did a little as well. She loved to sing, she was always singing, and my brother and I would listen to our new CD's over and over, creating dance routines. We'd fight over who got the "microphone" (usually a pen, or a hairbrush). And my mother has told the story many times - I was barely two years old, in my car seat as we drove through Vancouver one afternoon. We were stopped at light with an album store on the corner, a store with windows covered in posters. I pointed to the store, and blurted out in a crystal clear voice - "Michael Jackson!". Mom almost had a heart attack.

Genesis. Madonna. Bob Dylan. Billy Joel. Bruce Springsteen. Guns 'N Roses. Wilson Phillips. The Barenaked Ladies. Tracy Chapman...I will never forget my mother's voice..."Don't you know, we're talking 'bout a revolution, and it sounds like a whisper..."

My mom doesn't sing at all anymore, and I do not come home to John Cougar Mellancamp bouncing off the walls. But on the odd occasion, I come downstairs past midnight for a drink, and there is my dad, sprawled out on the carpet beside the stereo, listening to old CD's.

So today I walk past my brother's room, and my ears prick up. Is that...No, it couldn't be! No Son of Mine by Genesis? So I take a few steps back, and he turns around in his chair.

"Isn't this song sweet?!" he says. "It's sooo good!"

"We have this CD downstairs - ", I start, but he interrupts me.

"Yeah, I know," he says. Just like that. I could go on, with the "Don't you remember singing along to this song?!", but I can tell he remembers by the soundness of his voice. It's funny the little things we forget. I believe he had not thought of those days for a very, very long time. The song brought him back. So I had to be brought back, too.

I went downstairs and searched for the CD, and with time I found it. And then I listened to it, all the way through, and then once more. And I took it with me in the car to work.

Now I am trapped in a sea of memories...of dancing, of singing, of my brother crawling into my bed on early Saturday mornings, and whispering, "Krista...if we turn on the stereo very softly do you think Mommy will hear it?"

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