I was in a car accident in 1997 with my father. We were enroute to Seattle from Florida to go explore Washington, a father and daughter road trip of sorts. During the trip, he went into diabetic coma behind the wheel and his movements were slowed down. He was like a drunk and the car was going 75mph through a tunnel outside Mobile, Alabama.

I knew I was going to die. My life flashed before me and all I felt was a longing for my children, a need to be with them, a fear for their safety. I put the car in park and the car began to slow down gradally. At 65mph, I could see that we were heading in a route that would mean we might jump over a concrete low block and plunge down into another highway. My natural instinct was to open the door and drag my foot on the ground outside. I guess, like a kid on a bike, I was trying to slow the car down since my dad was hung over the wheel and his weight on the accelerator. It didn't make sense but that's what I did. It was 12:30 at night and pitch black. I opened the door to the car, said "I love you Daddy", jumped from the car and rolled infront of a truck going 60mph plus. I rolled down a hill and into the dirt. I don't remember much except that my hands hurt from the concrete impact and my head was bleeding. I guess I eventually got up and walked to a gas station. I was in an poor all black neighborhood, off the highway and at 1amish, this was a threatening place to be for a woman in dirty clothes, bleeding.

Walking up to the gas station, I was sobbing and a mess. People started walking up to me asking me if I was okay and I just kept telling them to call the police, that my dad was somewhere rolling down the highway and had gone into a coma. Inside the gas station, they let me use the phone and put me on with 911 police. I explained what had happened and pretty soon, a fire engine was outside and a slew of police cars (white woman causing all this in an all black village, oh man). I told them to go look for my dad. This was the deep south and I'm not sure they believed me. They looked at me like I was a rambling women. A while later, a cop told me that some other cop found my dad up the road several miles in a battered vehicle and that they were driving him back to me.

My dad got there, unharmed. He was angry that I had called the police and he acted like an insane person. He kept telling them that he did not go "out" behind the wheel, that I was making this all up, but the damaged car suggested otherwise. Luckily a fully insured rental car.

His eyes were big wide, he smelled like like a drunk man and he was acting like a crazy person, very very angry. He told me to to get back in the car, that we were leaving to continue on our trip to Washington. I took his keys and told the officers I would not get in the car with him. My dad insisted that he was going ahead. I told him that I would not go to WA, that I would go home in the morning. After what felt like hours of arguing, I convinced my dad to go to the Waffle House to get something to eat "before we would leave for Washington". We sat there and ate in silence. Afterwards, I was able to convince him to take a hotel room. I pretended we would go to Washington and told him we'd leave in the morning after some sleep. I told him I wasn't feeling well and that I had a headache. All night, I listened to his labored breathing and strongly felt in the night, he would die. He was out of it so he couldn't monitor his blood sugar to see where he was at. I knew not enough to do it myself. My son had not turned diabetic yet and I was not up on the ways of something I should have been for years, to protect my dad in case of emergency.

It was a really long night. I stayed awake because I wanted to be there if he woke up or his body started to convulse or something. But everything was okay. He just fell asleep. I stayed awake. At 6am, we both woke. My dad was back to being himself. He asked me if I wanted to continue on or go home and I told him that we had to return the rental car since it was damaged. I put him in the passenger seat and I drove, from Mobile back to Sarasota, I was the parent. I told him when to eat breakfast and made him eat it. We stopped for lunch. I ordered for him. He was very quiet and very submissive. My dad is not that type of man. I was terribly underslept but we made it back home.

After that, we never spoke about that night.  Instead of moving to Washington, we decided to move outside Boston. I was still married at the time. In time, the relationship fell apart and you know my story of how I drove to LA to make it in film and on my own.

Since that time, my parents have always been trying to pull my children from me, telling me to drop the bag of financial responsibility, that they would take them so I could go live my life. My dad was convinced I would never meet a man who would love me as long as I had 4 children under my skirts and he wanted me to have a life. I fought my parents for years, supporting all of them. I met another man who I fell in love with. We had become best friends and he was my rock during my ride through the adult industry.  We became lovers as well as friends. We both had our own lives. Through him, I learned how to deal with my anger issues and channel them to do what was most constructive for my kids. Through me, he learned not to fear life. He left his parents home at the ripe age of 30 and make his own life. I helped him get a great job, his first "real well paying job" since he had lived at home. This was perhaps the deepest friendship of my life. Unfortnately, he couldn't handle the kids. He enjoyed spending time with them but he couldn't bring himself to be a father figure type. He remained more of a friend to them and I just didn't see it happening, nor did he but that didn't change our love for each other or how we worked through our own issues through each other and each became stronger with the willingness to be weaker, to allow us to help each other.

As time went on and out of the blue and when I was least expecting it, I met someone else. Someone I did not need, at a time when I was strong and confident and doing my own thing so to speak. The connection was on point. The feeling of warmth and passion was secondary to friendship and I felt more protected and equalled in his pretense. I did not question my actions and I pursued him with a vengeance. He was in a relationship at the time but I really didn't care as I still maintained a friendship with a man on my end so who was I to judge or cubbyhole and label. At times, we would push each other away, and at other times, we would come together again. The timing was all wrong. We really didn't need each other in the sense that I think most people do but perhaps that was why it was unique. There was an understanding and many similaries. The connection was powerful and almost scary. In time, the connection became too powerful, the push/pull too frustating and I wanted more. It ended with a bang (but not the type of bang you'd like to see here). It ended with anger because it had to. He told me he didn't love me and I told him I didn't believe him. We went our own separate ways.

Recently, my parents told me that they were taking the kids from me, that it was time for me to live my life and that I had supported everyone with no child support for 4 years, that they were taking the kids and moving and that they wanted me to move on. That didn't make sense to me since they were my reason for living and taking care of them gave my purpose and kept my life in line, productive and positive. I was so angry. We fought for months. I wasn't going to let them go.

This was a rough time in my life. I lost a love. I was losing my kids. Everyone was walking away to help me or so they said. None of that made any sense.

continued....