The child in me is the same these days as it has always been. More and more I give it permission to enjoy quietude and simplicity, for that is what it likes the best. I am just not given to liking big parties or celebrations. I don’t like overdoing anything; I thrive on balance.

This may be because my childhood home featured a lot of drama. My father, who only went through eighth grade, was a very intelligent man. He started the first private pharmaceutical company in Memphis, Tennessee, where I was born.

He knew many doctors and thus he had full access to lots of prescription medications. He called them his “headache pills” and he usually had some in his pocket. His sudden angry outbursts came during withdrawal periods and his moods of generosity and good cheer came when he was high on them.

He would get very angry and often it was aimed at my mother and little brother. I would hurl myself into the middle, trying to make my father quit yelling at them. He seldom got angry at me, probably because I was the most like him. I certainly looked like him, with his dark hair and fair skin.

I was a model student and well-behaved child. I wrote poems in little notebooks and loved to hear my mother read to us. But when I was thirteen, I had a full-fledged panic attack. Only no one knew what they were back then. I feared any social event and went to any lengths to avoid going.

These panic attacks turned into social anxiety. My husband was outgoing and used to get aggravated at me for not wanting to entertain. I just wanted to stay home. And that continues to this day.

When my daughter died, solitude was healing for me and when my husband died, it became even more so.

But there is a happy ending to this story. That little girl who wrote poetry in nickel notebooks now sits writing to you on her iMac. Thousands of essays have been written by me. Oh, yes, thousands. Free from all claims on my time, I write my heart out.

I have never been interested in intellectual knowledge of the truth. Nor even in viewing life in rose-colored glasses. No, I specialize in honesty. I never water things down. That is just not what my essence wants.

So I will wrap this up for you in old newspaper and leave it on your screen where it will magically turn into a writing from one Vicki Key (my maiden name). You see she is still alive and well despite all the things she has gone through. She has one word for you. “Chrysalis.”

She was able to tell another second grader how to pronounce that name. If you don’t know what it means, looks it up!