I do like this journal.

After all these years, tryin' to remember all my back stories, and little white lies we've come up with, it's nice to be able to tell the real story somewhere. And I'll admit, Ms. Grey, it's nice to have a teacher who can know it, too.

At first, your journal assignment, 'Tell me about you're life so far' made me kinda nervous. But, since ya told me

"Just tell the truth. You're secrets are safe with me."

The truth is a pretty tricky thing, especially after all these years of pretending. But I'll tell ya what I know and what I remember. I guess that's the best I can do

I grew up on the Peace and Love Hippie Commune in Caldecott County, Mississippi. It was a pathetic, run-down little patch of land on the edge of town. It was surrounded by a chain link fence. If you went through the gate, you'd see a bunch of junky one-level houses jumbled next to each other. To the right were woods, and beyond the woods was the river. To the left of us was a small neighborhood of equally run down houses, making up the edge of the poor side of town.

The people of the neighborhood all thought they were better than us. To them, we were dirt-poor, no –account, hop-heads, and an embarrassment to the entire town. Fact was though; the people of the neighborhood were just as poor as we were in the commune, and I'm pretty sure there was a fair amount of drug use goin' on, too. But that doesn't mean that there weren't a lot of drugs in the commune, too.

Everyone in the commune did drugs. It was a pretty common thing. The commune's residents were mainly leftovers of the hippie generation, And of course, their children. The habits picked up at Woodstock hadn't been kicked, no matter how many years had passed.

Both of my parents did drugs. Sometimes, I thought that they had burned off their brain cells with the memories of having a daughter. I was a pretty neglected child.

I ran around in my mom's old, faded dresses that she wore when she was my age. Sometimes, I would go hungry, because my parents had spent the grocery money on drugs. Again.

School wasn't much an escape. I lived in the South, which is already always more conservative than other places. I t always seemed to me that the teachers at my elementary school were way more strict with the children from the hippie commune than all of the other kids at school. The older kids on the commune said that the teachers acted that way, because they thought they somehow could keep us from turning out like our parents if they were stricter with us than usual. And they were already pretty strict.

I don't know if they helped any of us or not.. But I do know I had some of the meanest teachers a person could ever have, and the most miserable school experience a person could ever have. I couldn't sit down without being told to sit straighter. I couldn't speak without being told to be quiet. If I accidentally forgot to call my teacher "Ma'am' or "Sir", then, boy, I was in for it.

My childhood wasn't completely awful, though. The children of the commune banded together. We were all equal sharers of a pathetic, hopeless situation, and we all knew it. We would go down to the river together. We would swim, fish, sing, and dance. All of those old-time songs and dances you see in old movies about the South, we did every one of them. One day, we built a raft, went fishing up and down the river, and sold what we caught to a couple of very amused fisherman.

Another time, we came upon a good old-fashioned riverside baptism going on. We talked to the folks from the church, and got ourselves introduced to the pastor of the First Baptist Church from up town. After that day, their church van would show up at the commune promptly at nine o'clock every Sunday morning, to take we kids up to the church for the service and Sunday school.

Most all of us went. Everyone was nice to us, we sometimes got snack, and most importantly, it got us away from our usually broken homes. Most of the parents were sleeping off hangovers from the Saturday night before, so they usually didn't notice if their children went missing for an hour or two.

Then of course, there was Mrs. Dessen. She was this elderly black woman who lived in the neighborhood next to the commune. To all of us, she was Mama Dessie. She lived on a fixed income, yet she was always cheerful, and kind to me, and the rest of the hippie kids.

Sometimes, it felt like she was the mother that I should have had. She seemed to have a special place in her heart for me. She would help me with my homework, give me a cookie when I was good, and patch me up when I showed up injured, because one of my parents got so high they lashed out at me which happened more times that I want to admit, but let's just say I became pretty smart about first aid after a while.

And that's the way it was for me, misery mix with small instances of fun and happiness. The happiness never stuck around for long. But at least it was there at all.

I figured it would go on that way forever. But nothing ever lasts. And nothing ever will.

When I was in the fourth grade, my Mama disappeared. She was just gone one day. Anything could have happened to her. She could have gotten high and accidentally stepped off into the river. She could have gotten into trouble with drug dealers. Or, she could have just left. I don't know how happy of a marriage she and Daddy had. My Dad thought she had left us. The police hadn't been able to find any leads. He became angry, and bitter, which are both bad things to mix with drugs.

When I graduated Elementary school, the school put on this huge assembly. We walked across the stage they had set up in the cafeteria, and they handed us little certificates they had printed up for us. I was so proud; I raced home to show my dad. I got a good look in his eyes. It took me a second to connect his red, glassy eyes with the smoke that was filling the room. He threw me into the opposite wall, and screamed at me for thinking I was so smart and so special, when I wasn't at all. What followed was one of the worst nights of my life.

When I recovered, I realized that my life wasn't very good, and it was just going to get worse as time went on. I realized that the only way I would ever be able to live a happy, normal, healthy life would be to leave this one all together. I had to run way. So, I waited over the next few weeks. I snuck away money whenever I could, and slowly began to pack up my things. I didn't feel guilty about the money; because I knew it was money Daddy would just use for drugs.

When I felt like I was ready to steal away, I took off in the middle of the night. I boarded a bus up to New York City, which I figured would be big enough for me to hide in without being noticed.

Now, Miss Grey, I know about a million alarm bells must be going off in your head right now, but don't worry, the story has a happy ending. At least I think so. I don't know if you, particularly, agree.