Two nights in a row I've dreamed of the playground outside our apartment building on Roosevelt Island and the little school - little piece of a school that was attached to the where we lived, where we went to school in sixth grade. So weird and novel to go to school in the same place we lived. Our teacher in seventh grade lived in our same apartment building, two floors up. Roosevelt Island is strange.

I dreamed of the playground. I dreamed they were putting down a new layer of firm, cushion-y rubber over the tarred ground to protect children falling from monkey bars. The rubber kept getting stiff and cracking and I dreamed they kept putting down new layers over the old ones, building up and up and up like the mattresses of the princess in the fairy tale with the pea.

Once in real life - not a dream - I accidentally put on a pair of pants that had a balled-up pair of underpants stuffed inside one leg. I didn't realize I'd done this until I went down to the playground and saw a group of children huddled over something, laughing. I joined them, recognized my underpants, felt panicked sick dread that somehow they'd know it was mine. It was white and covered with tropical flowers in orange, pink and green. I was afraid that maybe it was underpants with my initials written in the tag from when I'd been in the hospital the summer before. (It wasn't. No one found out. UNTIL NOW.)

I used to go to that playground after school sometimes and sit by myself on the monkey bars. I'd sit there and try to figure out who I was. I'd think, "I don't have an identity. I don't know who I am. I have no opinions and no tastes of my own." For the first time I thought, "I am depressed." I was making friends then but when they weren't around I just sat there on those dumb monkey bars. They're still there - the monkey bars -  and I see them when I go to visit Dad and make sure he's bathing and taking care of himself and pay his bills and change the kitty litter.

I know who I am now and I take pills for the depression and I always check my pants legs before I leave the house.

But really, the key is never to put your initials in your underwear.