Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial...

My skin is finally healing. The blisters peeled off, one by one, and revealed new skin underneath. It was very tender, but healthy. Occasionally I bleed. But I think I'm past the worst of it.

I called the Hygienic Art Gallery on Saturday because I couldn't remember when we were supposed to pick our pieces up. I spoke to Jim Stidfole, who told me that he'd called everyone whose piece sold, and I should come down on Sunday to get mine. When I got there, the piece wasn't where I'd hung it up. It turned out that it had sold about an hour before we got there! I'm thrilled. It sold for $100, which means I get $70 for it and the gallery gets $30. Makes me feel like less of an impostor. I might even have the courage to enter their second annual juried show in March.

"For what it's worth, it was worth all the while..."

I'm still depressed about my kids. But I did all I could do, by saying I was sorry for what I had done to hurt them. I'm not going to let them abuse me; nor do I subscribe to my daughter's theory that that's the only way they'll heal. They need to deal with their own stuff, and I'll deal with mine. It's very hard to think that I may have seen them for the last time in my life. But I have to accept it. And I hope this doesn't come back to haunt them later, but I don't actually think that will happen. They didn't seem to care how I was doing--all the while saying that I was the self-centered one. And when I tried to give to them in the present, they saw it as manipulation, rather than my just trying to do what I could now, since I'm only human and can't change the past. Perhaps they're partly right. I would have done anything to have some kind of relationship with them. Anything, that is, except admit to being my daughter's perception of me.

I shouldn't actually include Adam in this. He thinks he makes his own decisions, but he's led by his sister's ideas and opinions. I think he is naturally more forgiving than she is, but she pumps him up, and since he's also naturally volatile, that gets him in a pretty emotional state. I wonder if she thinks she's doing him a favor.

I really am sorry for the ways in which I hurt them. Most of it was out of my own screwed-up emotional state. But I can't change that. All I can do is try to be better.