A tortilla chip is falling through the sky.  Falling, falling, though and through, rushing past shades of blue and tints of purple.  Freckled with brown specks, it tumbles and twists and twirls like a dizzy ballerina, its skirt flaring up like Marilyn Monroe. 

The world whisks past in a haze.

It may never stop.  Or will it?  Because, I think I just saw it making its grand arrival, splashing down skillfully into a pool of salsa.  It is now half-submerged in a muddle of red, messy spice-flavored puddles encircling its royal highness.  It is here that our unlikely hero (or heroin, because you can never really tell a chip's gender) must end this long and tedious journey.  It is here that the tortilla chip shall rest until the end of time.  Or at least until some hungry snacker skips along and snatches it from its very roots, the very thing upon which it has built its splendid, blossoming foundation for . . . approximately two minutes now.  Two minutes, three seconds, and counting.

A nifty little page out of my notebook.  Is it strange (and it's probably not, because I always tend to underestimate these things) that most, if not all of my writing turns out this way?  The kind of stuff that you scribble in an old, stained notebook, and leave it there on a dusty shelf, or the stuff that you ramble about in a blog, and then forget about it in a lengthy archive.  I have no real commitment here.  There's no tedious project or novel-prodigy in the making.  It may be that I have an absolute flatline on any long-term ideas (and it's not like I'm going to turn a falling tortilla chip into the next Harry Potter series), or that I'm your typical lazy teen.  Or both.

My only commitment right now, seems to be my life.  You've seen that most of my entries revolve around . . . my life, right?  When something happens, when emotions rise, that's when I write.  You won't find me wringing my brains out over a lonesome piece of paper and pencil, just for the heck of it.

So, I can't decide.  When I'm comtemplating so much like I am now, it seems evident that I don't write for the right reasons.  I think of how I'm ever going to progress, of where all these words will lead.  And that inspiration Hollywood stuff says that if you love something, you go for it without considering the consequences?  Does that mean I don't love writing, truly love it? 

Well, that can't be right.  I know that I love writing.  I love it very much, very very much.  And just "much" enough that I think I want to progress in it.  But when you work and concentrate so hard on something you love, do you love as much anymore?  And, it just doesn't seem like much progression goes on when I'm going on and about and around like this . . .

Home alone again.

My family has never been perfect, no family is perfect, right?  Sometimes I feel as if the only thing holding this family together is me.  Honestly.  My parents aren't as close as I'd like, and my brothers are even more distant, especially since one of them left the house unexpectedly after a heated argument with my father.  One that hasn't been resolved since, and knowing my stubborn ancestry, never will.  Technically, I could be an "only child," because all of my siblings are well into adulthood, and everyone rarely seems to have the time to entertain me anymore.

Even my parents seem preoccupied.

My dad used to have a seroius addiction to casinos.  Gambling, and all that jazz.  That was years ago, and now he's tens of thousands in debt because of it.  I was only in first or second grade when all of this drama occured.  First grade, he would take me along and leave me for hours and hours in the daycare, even after all the other kids left and I was the only one left wandering around.  I couldn't tell time then, so I never realized just how long I felt abandoned and forgotten.  That was never the case, though.  He'd always remember me, because he's dad and I'm daughter, right?

By second grade, or third (I don't like recalling these details), I was left home alone for hours.  And from there, if I can say so myself, I make a pretty mean microwave dinner, and I learned to enjoy myself, the house, and myself.

My mother was really worried, of course.  They'd argue and act up all the time, and I'd despise it so much.  I'd lock myself in my room (actually, my room didn't and doesn't have a lock, but bombarding the doorway with chairs and pillows is as good a method as any) and cry.  Or not, I don't exactly remember. 

When things got really worse, and Mom dragged her pillows and sheets to camp out in my cramped room, sniffling and crying while I would twist and turn in bed, totally aware of everything around me, and completely annoyed because of it.  Sometimes, she'd ponder moving out, leaving to live on her own, and taking me with her . . . and sometimes, she'd ponder aloud, and I would be stuck listening to horrible thoughts.  I hated when that happened.  I still hate it.  All these years, and I'm still not close enough to my parents that I feel comfortable consoling, or at least listening, to their negative thoughts on the family.  Kids these days argue that they should be included in family decisions, and I can't totally understand their point of view.  But I don't always agree, because in my case, these situations often make me sad.  And I HATE being sad.

And then, he got better.  He quit, slowly.  The tension around the house decreased with the months, and I thought things were finally looking up.  Like I said, it's been years.

And now.  With two new cars to pay off, high gas prices, and just enough money to keep our house, the endless therapy and doctor bills because of my dad's health problems, and the additional budget to support my growing needs . . . I really wonder if it's come back.  The addiction, the disease . . .

I think it's returned within the past week.  Or the past two weeks.  I never like to remember.  But he goes out for his regular therapy appointments, and though it usually should last an hour or a little bit over, I find myself rampaging the fridge for dinner, hours after he's supposed to be home.  Mom always calls around eight, from work.  Checks in on us, I guess.  And I guess he's gotten smarter since then, because he happens to be home just around the time she calls.  (Years ago, I would be forced to lie to her when he wasn't home -- I hated that, too.)  But by this time, after I've gone to bed (or should have gone to bed) he's off again.  Just yesterday, he informed me that he was leaving (to Baker's for a pack of cigarettes -- yeah, right!).  And today, while concentrating intently on my Geometry homework, and my temper hanging loose, I nearly burst when he interrupted me with his return after another several-hours errand.  He kept asking questions about my mom -- Did she call?  What did she ask? Anything about him, if so, what did I say? What did I say EXACTLY?  How did she react?

Hey!  I was busy and annoyed, not a good time.

I guess he caught on that I didn't exactly jump for joy with his absences.

So, instead of dropping a note for me tonight, he just sneaked out and left.  He thinks I'm such the normal little girl that I happen to fall asleep with my bedtime?  As if I don't stay up to read, write, watch, or just stare at the ceiling and think?  It takes me hours to fall asleep, I'm lucky if I get a full eight hours of sleep before the alarm clock blares for another dreary morning.

What he did tonight just makes things worse.  What he did the other nights, all those years before, were really bad, too.  And I'm sure, the things he's going to do, until he realizes just exactly how he's contributing to the fray of this family, are also going to be really bad.

Mom's suspicious, she's begun snooping.  Just this weekend, they traded some snippy, high-volumed dialogue.  And Monday, she began pondering again, about moving out.  Leaving me.  Taking me. 

This isn't good.  Our financial stress just keeps piling -- don't think that just because I'm young and know near squat about mortgage or bankruptcy means that I don't catch on when we're having problems with those areas.  I'm not much of a help either, stuck in an age where puberty demands more and more emotionally and financially, and still too young to share some of the burden.  Even the meager five-dollars-an-hour at Burger King could pay for my own clothes and supplies, instead of leaning so much on my parents.  Should I even be worrying about this at my age?  Doesn't matter, because I am anyways.

I can't, I just CAN'T speak out.  I'm young, I don't know anything, what right do I have to lecture my dad on the family, or to calm my mother down when some strong chill-pills aren't available, and they never are in this household.

All I can do is hope?  God, I hate THAT, too.  Hope was such a fine thing in second grade, when I was young and believed in fairytales, and at that time, my parents were afraid to seperate anyways, because they were afraid it might make a bigger impact on me at such an early age.  Now, they think I'm old enough to understand, and I sure am -- sometimes, it feels as if I understand more than I should, definitely more than I want to.

I can't imagine how my parents can survive without each other, emotionally or financially.  They may not be head-over-heels like they used to be, but they don't have anyone else.  Mom's friends and family are so distant, and she's too busy with work and worry to indulge herself with anything.  My dad's less-than-agreeable demeanor can't keep many friends for him, either.  And then, whoever's stuck with me should be pitied.  My mother completely pays for the food and the house payments, so all he can do is tend to his debt.  And my mom -- I just don't want her to be alone.  I see the way my parents talk,when they're in good moods.  They're not half bad with one another. 

Will one or the other have to turn to bankruptcy?  Quit work when they need the money the most . . . and live in a senior home?  A homeless shelter?  On the streets?

And as high school reels closer, and college, eventually, the only way I can continue with a good education is a good scholarship.  No way my family will be able to support me with that.  And what if I lose my perfect-student streak at anytime?  End up working in some hellish ditch of a job.

And it's all beginning with this.  This family . . .  is just . . . ripping itself apart, seam by seam, and sometimes it just shoots for any snag or snip.  It's like that popular canvas metaphor.  Strong and steady and firm until the slightest blemish or scratch.  And then it just falls apart, and everything else just falls right through that hole it created itself, right through and through, and maybe forever, because sometimes, I wonder if there really is a rock-bottom.  This pit just keeps digging further and further.

All of this thinking.  I'm crying right now.  And I should get off, before Dad returns.

I don't like this.  AT ALL.