I just made the most amazing hamburger patties. I was not expecting such goodness out of the money and effort required, and I'm pretty happy with myself and my continued experiments with cooking.

The navy man who rents a room from my parents is coming over tomorrow. We call each other brother and sister, but there's heavy sexual tension between us. He's a good looking guy, has my favorite male coloring (black hair, blue eyes), lots of tattoos. He's also just a decent, caring guy.

He was going to spend the night tomorrow, so I could get my cuddle on, but after the realization that I need to push myself away from my usual comfort-seeking behaviors so I can find other ways of finding comfort that rely solely on myself, I politely texted him and let him know that I didn't want him to spend the night.

Which is sad for me, as I really do like his company, would have loved to have him over and stayed up talking about life and seduction until the both of us passed out.

But I have to draw the line until I get it under control. Have to figure out where things stand, and if I make an exception for one person, I'm going to find ways to rationalize others. Because I do that.

It's funny. I finally get my own place, no parents, no boyfriend, no roommates, which means it's my rules, my time, and I can have wild sex in every room of this place (though it's not that big, so it's not saying much), and... I'm not taking advantage of it. Well, not taking advantage of it on a sexual level.

Poor planning, I suppose.

My parents still aren't doing well. Won't be doing well for awhile. I'm starting to make a point of taking a minimum of eight hours out of one of my weekend days to drive out there and stay with them. I can bring paperwork, projects, laundry, a book, and get things done while still hanging out.

Last weekend, my father was so depressed he was hardly talking. Hours without saying a word, just sitting on the couch, waiting for time to pass. My mom was scurrying around the house, trying to do the usual chores while still going into the family room to sit beside her husband, pat him, kiss him, rub his feet, while he stared blankly at the television. His face has gotten so old in the last month, not wrinkled, but just... disconnectedly drained like an Alzheimer's patient.

I wonder if this is going to be something that will stay with us forever. We've survived so many other things, but nothing as bad as last December.

A scar on our family.

We're waiting for the medication to kick in, so he can be himself again, so he can be functional. The doctors say to wait, that it'll happen, it's just a matter of adjusting, checking in, and adjusting again.

It's hard to get over my fear of him, fear built of all the years growing up, being topped off so nicely with the terror of the potential instilled in me, the potential that finally became actual.

I still love him. I still adore him.

So I went over there after my hair appointment, washed his car with the navy guy, did a few loads of laundry, came in to find my mother not quite freaking out, but definitely another weight on her back. My father loves to cook, loves to create in the kitchen, mix things together in unrepeatable ways because he doesn't pay attention.

The plan was that he was going to cook dinner. Get his kitchen groove on.

But by the time the cooking hour rolled around, he was still lost in his own mind, sunken into the couch, expressionless. He did not want to cook. It wasn't that he didn't want to cook, really, as much as he was so gone into the depression that even standing up took on a weight that he was unable to lift.

Mom didn't know what to do. Grocery shopping has been minimal of late, since my father has been out of work since December. There's not a lot in the kitchen, only things that my father would think to combine into some random meal.

So I went to the store.

Rather, I was doing my laundry and wearing a pair of men's pajama bottoms with the Nintendo logo emblazoned across them, no bra, a Henry Rollins t-shirt from his current tour, my hair up in a messy bun, soap and water from washing the car down my left side, and my mom mentions she doesn't know what to do about dinner, we have salmon but nothing really to cook it with.

So I throw on the only pair of shoes I had with me: the original Docs again, grab the navy guy, and head over to the local Trader Joe's.

I got a few looks.

I also got my groceries.

Came back and helped my mom clean up the kitchen while I cooked, dragging my father off the couch by being charming and cute. This works right now, because I'm only over once a week, so I can play at being the rarity, play up that I'm only there for a short period so he better spend time with me and talk to me to get him out of his stupor.

If I still lived there, it wouldn't work.

We all sat down when the food was done, my parents, my sister, the navy guy, and had something resembling a normal family dinner, even though my father's conversation was limited.

This really is the most important part of my life.

It drags me back, holds me from doing things I want to do for fear that I would somehow hurt my family.

But they are everything to me. Sometimes, when things are good, I forget that I should be clinging to each afternoon or evening spent with them like it's gold. That I shouldn't be sitting off somewhere with my nose in a book, or watching TV with my sister.

It's hard to picture them dying. We all die, but it's so disconnected from right now. They're in their fifties and it feels like we've got another forty years together. I feel that when my mom dies, I'll simply cease to exist because I can't imagine being in a world where I cannot talk to her.

The people that make us. Not physically, but emotionally.

I simply don't know. I don't know how to express the things I feel, the things I think. Words fall short so often, I fall into repetitive, slightly altered, phrases. Just looking for that connect, looking to be more than the inferences my words bring to the individual.

I remember hearing something, in a movie, where the truly tragic thing of life was that we did not hear each other, did not see each other, as who and what we truly were, only could hear/see the interpretations created by ourself of those others.

Or maybe that was a dream I had.

Words as barriers. At least when I touch someone, I can imagine I'm somehow getting my emotions across.