So today, I am a mess. Shocker. I know.
My mom is currently on a plane headed back to California, and even though this is already the 5th time that her and I have had to say an awfully hard goodbye in the last year; it is not any easier. I keep expecting that it will become nearly natural to say "so long for however many months!" and "hello to numerous phone call and text conversations a day!", but it really doesn't. It gets harder, if anything. Which is so unbelieveably frustrating. It's like 5 years are taken off of my age every time I have to say goodbye to her so I imagine that the next time I'll probably be in the fetal position sucking on my thumb and wondering how in the hell I ended up in a crazy people's institution.
But maybe it isn't so crazy for a girl to just need her mama sometimes. Especially when that mama is all that girl ever had for many, many years of her young life. I have a great mom. It truly is a blessing in disguise that I get so upset at the idea of not seeing her every day. She's a bit nutzo from time to time, sure, but aren't we all? After all, the crazy apple don't fall far from the nutzo tree.
Her first day here, I had only gotten about 3 hours of sleep because I was just too excited. We spent the day doing all of the girly things I don't get to do as often anymore like shopping, drinking wine, and going out to lunch. I took her to the mall that I usually have to go to by myself and couldn't help but feel warm from the tips of my toes to the top of my head that I finally had someone to walk and talk with at that damn place. Now, of course, I'm thinking about the next time that I'll have to go back there by myself and how it's going to be even more horrid than before.
Her second day, we went in to the city. (Of course.) I felt warm all over that day, too, because I couldn't help but remember all of those times that my mom and I would talk about New York City. I was just a little girl when the obsession began, pictures of Manhattan covering my bedroom walls, and I'd tell her, over and over again, a real-life wish, that "one day we will go to New York City and walk around and see museums and eat hot dogs from the hot dog carts" and just a few days ago, that's precisely what we did.
We got lost and took the crowded subway up Madison to 86th Street. We saw Park Avenue, and HOLY CRAP, Carrie Bradshaw's apartment from SATC. We ate a hot dog from a hot dog cart outside The Met and I had my long-awaited Gossip Girl moment on the steps. We ventured through The Met for hours, still not seeing it all. And then promised ourselves we'd be back one day to see the rest, but Bloody Mary's were calling our names right now. We mistakenly asked an ass-hole for directions (who did not give them to us), and found our own way to the Boathouse in Central Park (thank you very much). My mom just kept saying to me, "Wow. Look where we are, Taylor! Look where we are!" It was like re-living my first time in Central Park all over again. We were going to have lunch in the Boathouse to go along with our Bloody Mary's, but we got there late and they were no longer taking lunch reservations. The snooty waitress intrugued me instead of pissed me off because - HELL-OH - real life movie moment. I wanted to slip her a twenty and see where that got me, but I didn't have a twenty.
We saw the fountain and the bridge where Chuck and Blair got married at the end of Gossip Girl. (And my mom got mad at me for continuing to refer to this gossip show she'd never seen before.) Butterflies enveloped my stomach at the sight of the wide and famous walkway in Central Park. (You know the one... it's in Friends With Benefits a lot. Sorry. Another movie reference. God, I'm such a tourist.) Then, I showed my mom where Jason proposed and "ooo"'s and "ahh"'s ensued. We exited the park at 5th and my mom got practically giddy at the sight of Tiffany's. Yes, even more so than the sight of mine and Jason's proposal spot (much to my dismay), but you have to give it to the woman- he is the one responsible for my "living so damn far away". (Her words.) She then pointed out the fountain outside of The Plaza and yelled, "Ooo! Ooo! That's where those two guys walk in that one movie!" So there. I'm not the only one.
After we found a little burger joint for dinner, I took her to Times Square. I'm pretty sure that was her favorite part of the whole day. She really couldn't believe her eyes. Plus, her eyes were being somewhat blinded by all of the lights so, there's that. We got in a mother-daughter spat walking back to the train station because I was walking too fast. What I had to explain to her was that we were in New York, and New York was walking too fast. We didn't come to a reasonable agreement, but we did decide to catch the next train instead and have one more glass of wine.
Which leads me to this, people- DREAMS COME TRUE. They might not always be what you expected and they might take sacrificies to achieve (i.e. moving across the country and dealing with a constant ache called "homesickness"), but no matter the cost; have patience, and most of all, have persistence. Don't ever think for one second that any dream you ever place in your heart is too big or too scary or too much to ask for. It is yours and it is worth it. Whatever your dream is, focus on it. Think about it. Write about it. Picture yourself having it, every single day. And I promise, in some way at some time, it will come true.
New York is a dream come true for me. It's taken so many tears and so much heartache to get here, but I got here. I didn't know how I would get here, I didn't know what it would take, I didn't know that it would be so hard... But I got here. And here is my home for at least the next two years. Here is where the love of my life sleeps next to me every night. Here is that little sparkle I had in my eye as a little girl dreaming of a life in "The Big City".
Anyway...
The rest of our weekend together was maybe not quite as exciting, but equally as satisfying. Jason took us out to breakfast at this old diner down the street. The waitress kept calling me "boo-boo". Then he took us to a pumpkin patch, with, "Oh my God! Actual pumpkins growing out of the ground!" and complete with actual hayrides as well. That night, we watched mediocre comedy stand-up shows on Netflix and mimicked all of the lines along with The Wedding Singer whilst sipping some Apple Cider Sangria that I made. It was a perfect day.
The only time we left the house on Sunday was to go to the movies. To be more specific, the dine-in movies much to my mom's thrill because she'd never been to one of those before, and saw The Martian with Matt Damon. It was a great movie. It was a perfect day.
On her last day, I brought her on the train to school with me. Jason took half of the day off, which is a miracle in and of itself because he never does that, and took us out to lunch after my classes. It was so strange to have them there on campus with me. This campus that has shaped me in so many ways in such a short period of time. A campus that I have had to conquer completely on my own. And now, here they were. Two of my favorite people in the world making this big, scary campus not quite so scary anymore. I think Jason knew I was struggling with the idea of her having to leave again, without me saying a word, and wanted to be there for me. We had many a silent conversation with our eyes that afternoon. It was, you guessed it, another perfect day.
It was not, however, a perfect evening. The later that the day got, the more hours that passed by, and the more that the sun sank down outside our apartment windows... the heavier my chest began to feel. Every time that I would think about the fact that my mom would no longer be sitting there - next to me, in her pajamas, sipping wine - just 24 hours from that moment, tears would prick my eyes, and I would squeeze my eyes tight to will those tears away.
Of course I tried to talk myself out of having a complete and total, hormone-induced meltdown. It wasn't as if I was never ever going to see my mom again. (Like, ever.) You're going to see her in two months for Christmas, you crazy, over-emotional freak... Yeah, as you can guess, calling myself names didn't really help matters.
Nonetheless, when I was in the safety of the bathroom, shutting the door to take a shower, pulling back the curtain, turning on the water... I could no longer hold back the tears that threatened their escape. They escaped and escaped and it took all that I had to not outright sob. I don't want her to go, I begged. It was suddenly the only thought I could form. The house could have been on fire, for God's sake, and I wouldn't have noticed. I had hoped this would be the easiest "see ya later" of all, and it was quickly turning out to be the worst. I let my tears run together with the water from the shower into one, salty stream and cried and cried waiting for the ache in my chest to stop it's pesky heaving. I then suddenly felt Jason's arms around me, hadn't even heard him come in, and there he was. Holding me in the shower, fully clothed, and not saying a word while I cried, and cried, and cried... Somewhere beneath all of those tears, and all of that ache, I fell even more in love with the man I am to marry. However, it's safe to say that my eyes have been so swollen today I can hardly see out of them.
It might sound completely over-dramatic, but all of the places we went this weekend, the places we sat, the stores we shopped in, the restaurants we ate in, the streets we walked down... they all are going to remind me of her for awhile. The thing is, that every thing I do here still feels like a dream. It feels like I'm living in someone else's body, going through the motions, and waiting for it to all feel real. It felt real when she was here. Like a piece of home comfortably next to me wherever I went. It all wasn't so scary anymore.
It feels like a dream again now that she's on her way back. Not to mention, I nearly lost it this morning on the light rail when I sat in the same seat she sat in less than 24 hours ago and thought to myself that I'm on my own again. I thought to myself that I'll sit in this seat every day and maybe sometimes pretend she's still sitting right there next to me, eyes wide, looking out the window. For right now at least, all that I'm able to think about when I see these places is how just hours ago she was right there - right there! - and now she's on her way to being 3,000 miles away again. And I'm back to having to be brave. I'm back to facing what I wished for with as much grace as I can muster because, again, I wished for it.
I miss my mom already. (Was that not obvious?) I miss the familiarity of home. I daydream about what it will be like to move back there where my mom is merely minutes away, always ready for a shopping trip or a snuggly movie... I daydream about it in the same way that I dreamed about this place. How fucked up is that.
I don't mean for my Blog to sound like it was written by Debbie Downer herself, but my heart hurts today. And when my heart hurts, I write. I also cry, apparently.
Thanks for listening to these writings of my heart, whomever you are.
I'll try to write about finding my way again. You know, once I'm able to do that.
Xoxo,
City Girl From Cali
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