I sat all alone in the over-heated car, my sweaty back clinging to the plush car seat. I felt the warm air from the car heater against my cheeks; I could hear the close chugging of the running car I now sat in, and the distant voices behind me in the gloomy parking lot. I counted the raindrops on the windshield as the wind sprayed them in random numbers in all directions across the dirty glass.

I glanced out the window for an instant, my squinting eyes searching the landscape for a trace of my mother. She'd "run into" the grocery store moments earlier, but I seriously doubted that she would soon return. The rain pounded on the roof of the small car I found myself huddled in, and I heard the screeches of brakes on the open road; everyone else in the world was escaping the slushy streets of Boston and returning to their cozy homes and loving families. Their hurried pace saddened me, for they at least had something worth rushing for, whereas I did not. I might go home for an evening of old TV reruns, or perhaps, if I was lucky, my mother would nag me into cleaning my room. She'd probably light up a cigarette and call her numerous friends to make plans for a future date. I knew well that I would be left out of her thoughts and actions, left alone to my thoughts, none of which I found even remotely interesting.

I glanced once more at the ugly atmosphere surrounding me: the dismal streets and dirt-streaked store windows. The insides of the stores were all brightly lit; they presented a world for people like my mother but remained closed to me. I was not invited to enjoy their wares or colorful displays , I was not good enough for that. No, I would be left in the background merely to witness life, not to take part in living it.

In the eyes of my mother and others like her, I could only be a child on a dark night, never her child on a beautiful evening. She would always be with friends. And I would be left to gaze through teary eyes at the festivities I could never join. I would always sit in silence and watch the good times roll, but I would never, ever, take part in them. I sat and cried to myself that night about the person I was and the person I would never be. I sobbed until the tears streamed down my face just as the rain dripped and scattered across the windshield and until my eyes were as soaked as the heavens in the eye of a storm. And through the blinding river of tears I would always be able to see what I was missing.n