Wherever you will go, I will let you down, But this lullaby goes on.

With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they-and those that you knew best, for that matter-did not disappoint.

It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.

What do you do when you finally hear everything you've always thought said aloud?

The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then down the hallway to my room, where I did the same. It was amazing what a little noise and brightness could do to a house and a life, how much the smallest bit of each could change everything. After all these years of just passing through, I was beginning to finally feel at home.

It’s never something huge that changes the everything, but instead the tiniest of details, irrevocably tweaking the balance of the universe while you’re busy focusing on the big picture.

But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.