full moon world tilt.

The moon is sitting fat and full and yellow outside my car window, and I can't help but think about how my dad has always called this moon MY moon. "Erin's moon was out last night, did you see?" he would say if he visited the next day. My mom's moon is the thin white sliver crescent, so much like a fingernail.

It's ironic, you see. There are certain truths of my life that have defined me in the way that histories tend to define parts of your foundation. My mother is my father's mistress. He has a wife and family that do not know I exist. I am a source of great guilt in his life, but he loves me anyway. These are the truths of my identity, and as of a few days ago, they've been altered.

My mother's existence became known of. My sisters called my cell today, I assume getting the number from phone records, hoping to contact my mother but reaching me instead.

They asked me things they needed to know and truth flowed from my mouth like water from a wellspring. I told them a lot about my parents, about how it hasn't been a novella-style sexy affair of an older man and younger woman. How it's been about love. How in my heart of hearts, my father sets an almost terrifying example of the man I hope to marry; he is the epitome of Corinthians. He is patient. He is kind. He does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, nor rude or self-seeking. He is not easily angered or keeps records of wrongs (God knows). He does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth, which is why keeping this one has made, I firmly believe, a third of his life one endlessly bittersweet agony for him.

He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

My sisters broke my heart with the sweetness of their understanding. Only one spoke, and she said that she knows I'm her sister because even though she just learned of my existence (from me...10 minutes earlier), that she knew from my voice and my words that I was lovely and she knew she could love me as a sister. I'm so proud that I can call women of that caliber my own. I've known their stories almost as long as I've known mine, and to witness their grace and strength during such a personal upheaval is awe inspiring.

My story is so altered. How ironic that it happens a week after I started the first chapter of my book, which is all about my parents?

I hope I can have more of them in my life, even though just this small contact is more than I thought I'd ever have.

What a life. And I mean that in a good way.