Life is weird. I've never been so poor, so busy, and so happy and so sad all at once. Today is my day off and I am going to play bingo all day downtown with Sarah.

I think I am in love.

I think my dad is haunting me. If anything, the memory of him sure is.

If I told you that I
was thinking of moving west
would you save a place for me?
I'll come home
because it's worse that I expected.

A place in my heart
for my home to the west
where we'll watch the same sunsets,
and when I doubt...
I'll look east and lock my heart
in a brass box to new boston mich.
I'm breaking off but this is my home.

I'd do anything for you,
give you the world if I could.
Is that what you want me to do?
These bridges and boundaries are bringing me closer to you.

dear dad.

After you passed, I got a lot of different perspectives on how to deal. Most of it only hurt me instead of helping me, but that's life.I get it. Nobody knows what to say to a 20 year old girl who lost a father she spent her whole life trying to understand. For a while I really don't think my brain or my heart let me believe you actually left me. My heart told me, "he couldn't leave you right now. Nope. Not as you're just becoming close for the first time since you were a child. he would never leave you like this." And my brain tricked me into thinking he was still just 60 miles and a phone call away. I guess that trick is still being played because most mornings I wake up expecting a missed call from you only now I want to call you and tell you I love you instead of putting it off for days like I did when you were still here. Despite all the bad advice I got, a few people really pulled me up with these: "It comes in waves" and "some days are harder than others." It still hurts like hell and it's harder than anything else. But those are the waves and these feelings are only this intense some days.

As long as my memory serves me, I'll never forget what happened that night when I came home from the hospital, after I had just watched you take your last breath and your chest heaved up and down until your life was gone.I don't believe in god or signs or some fairy tale afterlife. But man, did the idea of you shake me up that night dad.

I was upstairs in my bedroom in royal oak with tymm, trying to figure out how to fall asleep. It was after 5 am and I was in bed with my glasses off, exhausted in complete darkness. Out of nowhere that orange light began to glow. He jumped up to see where it was coming from. "Do you see that jess?" I could see it even with my broken eyeballs. It was coming from some power cord on the floor and without my glasses on it lit up my entire world for a few seconds as tymm held the cord up in front of me, holding one end of it in each hand to show me it was not plugged into anything and it was still glowing. How the power light on that cord was glowing in his hands that night after you died I guess I'll never know. But there are two things I do know. You were an electrician and you didn't say goodbye to me. You were good at most things you did, but you were great at two things. Making lights turn on and making sure you always told me you loved me before you said goodbye. And for the rest of my life I'll believe that's exactly what you did that night in my bedroom in royal oak. Two days later I got a tattoo of a latern to keep me sane.It's worked. All I have left are memories and for the rest of my life I will search for moments full of you. I loved you endlessly, my handsome dad. If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied and illuminate the "no" on their vacancy signs--if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, I'll follow you into the dark.

When I stand behind the ice cream freezers at work patiently waiting for these little brats to finish screaming their orders to their pushover mothers, my mind wanders. As the turd is screeching about how he wants a bigger size or more than one flavor, I slip into a daze every time and I stare out the window and think about where I am, and where I want to be.

Where I want to be: Head underwater at Springmill pond. Swimming across the lake with Julie. Not wondering. Cutting all my jeans into shorts. Singing with all my favorites at Title Fight in July. In a car with Sarah and Johnny, singing terrible pop punk jams to eachother. In a tent with Amanda Martin in some dead serious woods. In a car full of my shit going to Chicago or Austin to live with Erica for a month or two or three or four. Disneyland. Jumping off a bridge into water (because all my friends are doing it). Whistling. I gotta learn to whistle first. Spitting into a cheap hotel pools after breaking into them with you and you and you. Starting a band (FINALLY) with Ryan Felton. Grandpa and dad's cabin on Sunrise Lake. Catching moths and lightning bugs in bottles but then letting them go to fabricate my sense of humanity. Feet on the dashboard, Morrissey dancing. Breathing in an ocean. Well deserved, fun bruises. Pretending to fight and just liking the touch. Phone calls with old voices. Dancing without clothes. High of 76. "I think I'll visit you at work tonight." Returned calls.

Where I am:

304 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 20 years old; 21 in a few weeks. Single. Okay with it. Broke. Thirteen dollars to last me an entire week...wish me luck. No hair. Summer. Went to the beach a few days ago and had the best day of summer, so far. Saves the Day stuck in my head. Empty apartment. Drinking grape juice from wine glasses. Best friends on the planet. Trying not to wonder where you are. It comes in waves.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Wish you were still here dad.

"Where Did You Go" by Valencia describes my life in detail.

"And it feels like this is the perfect time for me to say that deep down inside I'm hurting, but at least I know you're worth it. And if I hold myself with pride and accept the pain, then life will take me through these changes, because I have so much left to see."

My dad's birthday is 6 days away and it's really wrecking my heart. In the meantime I've been fucking up with everyone I love, by shutting down and being a nervous wreck half the time. Last night I let that side of me go and I finally let everything out. Luckily, Tymm's arms are always there to consume me and some of my friends' hearts are made of gold.

So long, someday I'll find the strength to move on.

Being back where I feel home was all I needed. I've got my dad on my mind all the time, but the feelings aren't so heavy anymore. They are just light and I can feel him all around me even though I know he isn't there. This is the best. I feel like I drifted too far and I'm swimming back to shore.

This must be the place.

Let down.

Last night my little brother broke my heart.

"I just can't take it that he died a very sad person. I just wished I could have helped him and told him that people did care so much about him, including me. I had plans to take him to do everything he wanted to do...fishing trips and traveling, when I got the money. But I never even told him that. I couldn't because he was never sober for a fucking second and I couldn't be around him because it tore me up. Mom called him and told him I was worried sick about him and he was thrilled that I even cared. When his electricity got shut off, Jessica, the house was so scary because he blocked off every room and slept in the living room next to the gas fireplace to keep warm. Damn it. I can't stop crying now. I don't know. I just wanted to take him on real fishing trips and all those places he wanted to go. I just wanted to get rich so he wouldn't have to worry about a thing. I always said I wanted to make him happy before I made myself happy despite the way he treated me. He still deserved the best."

If I lose faith in this world, I hope it doesn't come as a surprise.

Last night felt unbelievably great. New Found Glory. Everyone I love surrounding me singing our guts out. Tymm's life is seriously becoming unreal. I'm so proud of him and excited for everything his band is looking forward to. Bummer that it means he'll be gone much more, but it's just a small price to pay for all the good things coming his way...

So happy to get the fuck out of this house and into a tiny apartment with my best friend in downtown Ann Arbor. Back to my ice cream shop, back to where I feel comfortable in my own skin. I've got a million things on my mind, but I feel alright. Cast my worries to the side, focus only when I get the time. I will get there safely. I feel so lucky to have the few perfect friends that I do. I've got big plans with them for this season. Summer is here...I can feel all the beach days right around the corner. I will LIVE in a lake this summer. I am anchorless.

For sanity's sake, I wish my dad could leave my mind for at least a few moments a day. I literally spend all of my time thinking about him. Just wondering if things could've been different. I listen to "Anchorless" by the Weakerthans at least twice a day and the water balloons behind my eyelids pop.

"They called here to tell me that your're finally dying, through a veil of childish cries. Southern Manitoba prairie's pulling at the pant leg of your bad disguise. So why were you so anchorless? Shoebox full of photos; found a grainy mirror. Sunken cheeks and slender hands. Grocery lists and carbon-copied letters offer silence for my small demands. Hey how'd you get so anchorless? Got an armchair from your family home. Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels, and your telephone. Got your plates and stainless steel. Got that way of never saying what you really feel: so anchorless. A boat abandoned in some backyard. Anchorless in the small town that you lived and died in."

Yesterday was one month. When we got our new apartment yesterday I wanted to call my dad and flip my wig about how excited I am and ask him to help me move my things. But he isn't there to call, he isn't standing in his kitchen looking at birds through binoculars or watching my little brother shoot hoops in the backyard. He is gone.

I need you so much closer.

I'm alone but I'm not lonely. I have kinetic energy. The dividing line will separate us all. Sometimes it's those nights where I'm all I have is really all I need.

I wonder when or if it'll get easier. With each day I pretend to feel better but it's just getting harder, and becoming more "real." I still cry daily, possibly even hourly. I miss you, dad.

It's strange how the sun can shine when your father's dead and you're stuck behind a window. But it's only strange until I say fuck it, I will never be stuck anywhere.

Last night felt good. I slept in my best friend's bed while he snored on the couch and I couldn't stop crying. I wasn't even sad or miserable or anything intense. Okay I think maybe I was 10% sad since I was sleeping alone for the first of 35 nights without Tymm but otherwise, I didn't even know what I was doing crying like that into Johnny's pillows. I have the most wild emotions right now and I don't have the energy to sort them out so I just cried last night because I feel so bad and I feel so good. I feel guilty for having amazing days. I feel guilty when I sit with my best friend and laugh until we're drooling (we're pigs). But when I am happy like that, I savor it and I push away the guilt and it doesn't come back until I try falling asleep.

That's when I feel stuck, and I panic and wonder with intensity if the grip on my heart will ever loosen up. That's when I replay my day and the smiles and the faces of the people who made me laugh and then the guilt slams into me and my eyes fill up. And that's when I have to tell myself to shut up because after all of this, I deserve these good days and I deserve these amazing friends. And I close my eyes and push every thought out of my way until all I see is black and after hours of this, I finally sleep.

So, those are my nights, and these are my days. Today will feel good. Picking up Dave Kloc from the airport, he's home from LA for a couple days. Great dude. Then watching the Office with the usual bebes and their dogs, I HOPE.

I'm alone, but I'm not alone. I have kinetic energy.

I can feel myself turning back into the girl I was in that picture. Where I had a better attitude, I saw my friends every day, I ate ice cream in my second family's ice cream shop and then Sarah and I laid together on this hill every single day, where I drove out to go swimming in my dad's pool, where I woke up every morning in my mom's house to either her or the dogs making me laugh before I even opened my eyes, where I didn't even know how to pronounce Tymm's last name so I just pretended he only had a first name, where we'd spend every night in Johnny's backyard around a shitty fire we could never keep going and then end up getting ten people naked and swim, where my grandpa didn't have cancer yet and was still hammering shit in his basement, where I hid moth balls in Mrs. Gibbs hallway and stunk up the entire ice cream shop on accident, where Julie still drove around in that T-model junk ride with star wars stickers everywhere, where I rode my bike more than I drove my car, and where everything felt RIGHT.

March 2009 and the beginning of this month had the potential to wreck me. It was literally my worst nightmare coming true. Moving to Royal Oak and instantly dealing with the creepy Chelsea shit, my stubborn beautiful dad's life being taken from him, breaking my foot on the day of his funeral, and the downward spiral from those two situations. But I feel it closing. I've never wanted something to end as much as I wanted March to.

I know I'm turning back into the girl in that picture because I can feel the brakes slowing and my clear state of mind returning. I can't expect to come to a complete halt and everything just fall back into place. But I can appreciate the slow days I have now, laying in bed, feeling the love of my life's skin next to mine as I rest, dreaming about summer and baseball fields and slipping into the clear water at the beach, teaching my friends dogs to swim, putting some money together somehow to drive out to one of Fireworks shows this summer since he'll be gone for months at a time. I can appreciate my future.

Despair can ravage you if you turn your head and look down the path that's lead you here. Because, what can you change? You're a vessel now, floating down the waterways. You can take your rudder, and aim your ship, just don't bother with the things left in your wake. Just sail, belly up to the clouds, the rocks scraping your back. To breathe in the air will be the only thing that you have. And your love will be warm nights with pockets of moonlight spotlighting you as you drift, the actor in this play. You walk across the stage, take a bow, hear the applause. And as the curtains fall just know you did it all the best that you knew how. And you can hear them cheering now, so let a smile out and show your teeth because you know you lived it well.

I am coming home.

And just like that, he's gone. My handsome, stubborn dad was stolen from this earth by the hands of some young brutal coward. I forgive you, dad, for everything. I know you weren't innocent. I struggled for two decades trying to relate to you. I struggled for two decades trying to forgive you for the person you were and for the person you weren't. The most important thing in the world to me is that we ended our struggle on our own terms three or four months ago, and I finally felt like your daughter again. You have my heart in a kung-fu grip, dad. You spent the last four months of your life reminding me everyday, "I love you Jezebel." I had to delete those voicemails after your funeral the other day. There were probably ten or more, just you, rambling. They always ended the same way. I can look at your pictures right now, but I can't hear your voice. My ribs feel like they're cracking, like my heart is just swelling and bursting behind them, when I hear your voice played back over my phone. You and those vocal chords are gone.

Everyone's got something to say about where you went. Nana thinks you're in heaven, saving her a seat. Johnny thinks you're watching over him every time he sinks the basketball into the net; you're still at his games, you're the reason he scored that time. Your wife thinks you're coming home, she's only dreaming, this can't be real because she can still smell you on the pillows. I even heard some biker at your benefit dinner say you're probably sitting at the bar in hell, trying to buy the devil a drink.

But me? I know where you are. You're home. Home is nowhere. You aren't anywhere, but it sure feels like you are. I'd like to feel safe and comfortable and say a prayer to you hoping you're up in the sky listening to me. But I know that's not the case and I know that I am not safe in that sense. I am safe, though, with memories. You're still alive when I close my eyes and the movie screen starts playing on my eyelids. That's where you are and that's where you'll be forever. Standing above my eyelashes, I can still see you staring out the kitchen window, singing me some 90s country song. And then you turn around. There you are, dad. You're standing on my eyelashes wearing those old work boots, the same pair of jeans you've worn since as far back as I can remember, that flannel with a cigarette burn on the bottom right side, those rough big hands down on either side of your body. Your knuckles were always scabbed. I remember your thumbs were as big as my whole hand. Your neck lined with tiny brown specks all the way up to your mouth and behind your ears. The cuts on your striking jawbone from last time you shaved. Those cracked lips. Those crooked teeth. That nose that I wear, too. And then those eyes. Those wild blue bulbs of life that I wished mine looked like every time I looked into them. I'd spend hours when I was little sitting next to you pulling your earlobes and asking why my eyes were green. The best part about you was your ocean eyes dad. I think I'll miss seeing those, most.

I can't finish everything I wanted to say. This hurts. It's time go back upstairs and crawl into bed with my sleepy Tymm and close my eyes and play the movies on my eyelids. Tymm. Nothing else compares. He has proven to me his heart is made of gold. At the benefit dinner, my dad's best friend came up to me and said, "I heard you're married!"

He heard I was WHAT?

"Yeah, that's what your dad said. He said you got married!"

I don't know why my dad would've told this man I was married to Tymm but it makes me feel better knowing he met the person I will spend the rest of my life loving. I think my dad knew I was going to marry Tymm before I even did. He won't be there to walk me down the aisle, but it's okay because he already did, at some point in his wild mind.

Sleep time. See you in the movies dad. I'll follow you into the dark.