I loved this apartment! Chalk is on the leather chair watching me work. Cats are so smart! See the ivy on the tree through the window? I planted tiny transplants years ago.

My favorite part of the day is going to bed at night. I slip under the down comforter and sink into flannel sheets on a soft mattress. Chalk, my cat, is already curled on the foot of the bed. Finally, I can tune out. I welcome the darkenss and feel wonderfully anonymous. I swallow night like a pill. In a few minutes, finally, my brain will stop. I don't have to worry.

But the second I wake in the morning, even before I force myself to open my eyes, my stomach feels as though it's filled with cement. The dread begins and will continue to build all day. That and the fear of leaving my home and moving in with my parents.

This isn't a good idea.

I turn over to try to go back to sleep. But once I'm up, I'm up. My body aches from packing, hauling boxes up and down steps. It's all surreal and in my mind I don't see any of it materializing. It goes beyond denial. I can't believe any of this is happening. My only option is death itself. Maybe I''ll have a stroke. A heart attack. Drop dead.

For two months, I've secretly been hoarding Xanax for bad days that I know are coming when I need to feel stupefied and numb just to get through the day.

Chalk nervously creeps around boxes. He knows something is up. I worry about him constantly. Abused and feral, it's taken years for him to feel comfortable. He loves this place. The wooded yard, the river down the street. The porch in the summer. It's become his security.

My mother doesn't warm to animals. She wants him declawed to which I stalwartly refuse. We've already had words and I'm not even there yet. If she hurts him, I will have to leave. But to where? She wants him in the basement. A cruelty to a cat I once watched play with butterflies down on the river. Their neighborhood is new. No large trees. Built around a golf course. Sterile. It's a large house. Not a home. He will feel lost. Like me.

This isn't a good idea.

At nineteen I had already traveled halfway across the world camping my way through East Africa, discovering London and Amsterdam--and on my own dime. Now I'm moving back home because I don't have a dime to my name. I doubt my parents will have the ability to see me as an adult. Instead, I will still be a teenager, the maverick they could never understand. And still don't.

My dad will be 80 in October. He 's not in good health but still goes to the office of the company he founded several times a week. Sadly, their lives havent changed since I was a kid. They revolve around the business, the country club, shopping and consuming, going out to dinner. Meddling. And gossip. They both like to control.

My mother is a difficult person. We argue constantly. She's hyper and obsessive-compulsive. Nothing is ever her fault. She's never worked in her life. Doesn't know how to interface with people. We have nothing in common. I can't think of anything worse than having to sit in a room with her alone.

She harbors an unspoken jealousy toward me because of my affection for my grandmother, her mother, who was warm and loving, just her opposite. She wouldn't read my last book. None of my art hangs in "her" house.

And what about my geraniums? I've overwintered them to great success. They are as large as a bushel basket. Strong and healthy. I fear they will be orphans. Exiled. Plants make messes. They wear their red hearts on the outside. We hide ours on the inside.

This isn't a good idea, I keep telling my siblings. This isn't a good idea idea. You don't just uproot someone out of an environment they love, an environment that has kept them healthy and growing. All I need is help with rent until I get a job. Something will turn up.

I need to do my art. But, as I said, messes aren't allowed where I'm going. And good art is just that. Art has been my therapy from clinical depression. That and my studio. The other day a woman cried when I said I had to close. And move. Shouldn't that stand for something?

My parents think it will be a cinch for me to find work where they live. Don't have a clue as to what's going on "out there." Especially if you're middle-aged and searching for a job. I get my pension in four years. It may as well be forty.

How many people are packing right now, I wonder? It's the Grapes of Wrath all over. Joads' taking to the road. Leaving possessions behind. And memories. I'm emotionally drained from making decisions--what to keep, what to throw out. Books are always the most difficult. I hate getting rid of any.

I literally emptied the refrigerator and freezer this morning. Unreal. When will I have another one to fill?

My parents wait for warmer days. Opportunity to head for the greens to tee off. Chase a golf ball--oblivious to the millions who are pissed off. Oblivious to the millions who chased an American Dream that deserted them.

"This isn't a good idea," spools through my brain. It won't stop. This isn't a good idea." How many more hours until dark? How many hours until my next medication--swallow the moon whole and finally clear my head?

One of my beautiful geraniums.