'I'm sick', he says, lifting his curls from his forehead. 'Feel me.'

I put my hand there, feeling the heat coming off his face. 'You poor thing,' I say, feeling oddly close to him in that moment. Mother, daughter, friend. I never know quite what my role.

While I talk with others, he sits beside me, stroking my hand and arm absentmindedly. Eager to touch. Me.

When I leave, he hugs me from the side, planting kisses on my cheek. 'You're a star,' he says, 'Thank you. Thank you for sticking by.' Embarrassed, I make for the exit, a spring in my step. A tinge of sadness turns my smile a smirk.

Still, 2001, a shiny, perky year. I feel - almost - guilty. My personal gain sticks out so clearly against global loss. I rediscovered friendships, I learnt family is who you make it.

In the cold November night, on the edge of autum, we tiredly stroll along the green. We kiss our friendly goodbye.

Then, in the depth of my self, I find the courage to speak my heart.

It was the year I said: 'I love you.'

c  1 Jan 2002

A few years ago a woman drugged her kids and lay down beside them on the tracks at the bottom of the street where the country trains fly through late at night. They hoot softly, warning the late night stragglers on the platform they won't be stopping. They didn't stop that night.

I wondered at the time how she could do it. To kill yourself is one thing but to take your kids? It was one of those things the mind wants to turn away from. Not consider. As if by knowing the reason, it will be irrevocably contaminated. Later, I learned she had a bad marriage, a nasty husband, she was trapped. But still... to kill children?

In 2001, I came to understand that woman. My mind WAS irrevocably contaminated. But not by her. My mind beccame like a sweater with a hole that snags on everything, yet notices those snags and rough edges that very few others see. It magnifies the world and it frightens me. But now I understand. It was not the marriage, the husband, that trapped her so much as her own thoughts. She died not because she lost control of her life but because she lost control of her thoughts. Overwhelmed by guilt, she couldn't leave her kids and she could see no other way out of the pain. It was the kind of pain that she would do anything to quell. Perhaps if it was in her foot she could have chopped off a leg. But it was in her head.

She was lost to the world long before she lay down on the tracks.

If only she'd learned where to fight the real battle. Because, however mean her husband was, however trapped her marriage made her feel, neither were as bad for her and her children as her own thoughts. They proved fatal.

In November, my shaky house of cards collapsed and I was forced to find out where the real battle was.

Sabby  3 Jul 2002

I fell in love with one of my best friends that year. He sent me a crush gram for Halloween and told me how he felt about me. I told him that I felt the same way and nothing has been the same since. I have been blessed by his love and I think this could be forever. I love you Dylan.

Emily  6 Jan 2003

{ add your experience }