When I was little I used to go on family camping trips in a small tin-sided, pop-up camper. Not only were the sounds of the insects singing outside the zip-up, waterproofed cloth walls relaxing, but the feeling of unity and love I felt just from the fact that I was spending time with my family left me excited to wake up every morning. Even camping in the rain was soothing to me, the different tones of the sounds the droplets made when they fell heavily on the tin roof above my head... Waking up just to see that we'd sit inside the cramped space all day with each other sitting at the table that doubled as a bed playing chinese checkers while my brother shoved his red marbles up his nose... Laughing together, waiting for the rain to stop only so that we could sit around a fire together, hike together, just BE together. I can't believe I took that all for granted. Not only do I miss times like these, I feel like I hardly remember them. I keep the useless memories in my head, like the fact that one time we watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame on a rainy day, the way the crank which lifted the camper into it's full form looked like, but what about the moments of love I felt? Where are they? I wish I could reach through my mouth, up through my brain, into the back of my mind and pull them all out onto the table in front of me. Extract each memory useless or not and slap them onto the blank pages of the book which lies in front of me as I try to recollect what it felt like to be in this family. All I'm able to grasp is the lack of that family I once had, the red plastic checkers pieces we used to play with are now missing... leaving it all black. "King me" one piece says, repeatedly, they stack and stack up until all I can see is a black tower... It's in the way of what I want to see, what I want to feel. How did this all just slip away from me? How could my insomnia fail me in the times where I should have been paying attention to these feelings of wholeness? How could I sleep through that entire chapter of my life? It feels as if it was all a dream... A dream that I know I felt, but will never fully remember.