Two Weeks In

It's been more than a week now since I landed down on that rainy Tuesday evening into my new east coast adventure.  And although the sway of palm trees still teases at my subconscious,  my cat on the other hand seems to have nothing to say about the past. It's as if his time back there in the sun hadn't happened at all, as I watch him stare at the beautiful pines in my parent's back yard; those trees giving him just as much delight as anything else he had experienced on the opposite coast.

 So there it was just sitting in my parent's driveway when I returned home today,  a glaring reminder of its past and mine, staring right back at me from its bumper.  Of course it is different from all the rest at this moment, with a story so unique it will make their mouths water with jealously.  But soon enough, it will be just like the others, driving to and fro; just another clone, sitting in rush hour traffic.




After a three hour journey last Saturday, we finally arrived at the new "uncomplicated" life my brother has chosen in Vermont.  It felt like I was walking around in a fairytale, with a town so charming your face started to ache with all the smiling you were doing.  It was a life that traded convenience, for simple, and was so opposite of the one I had been living in Los Angeles, it was
hard to believe anybody could be happy there.  But these days, my brother might as well write the word "happy" on his forehead in permanent marker, because he's more content than I've ever seen him in his entire life.  And I must admit that after spending the day there, I believe I did indeed catch out of the corner of my eye, a quick glimmer of the magic that lives there,  as it peeked out at me from behind a tree, watching us pull away back into the city. 


Mother's day came again this year, as expected of course, but this time I didn't have to say my goodbyes, but instead, I started staying my hellos.  It was a feeling so good that it was hard to believe I waited all these years to feel it. 

The Big Day

It was strange to see the date "May 1st" finally glowing on my alarm clock as I woke up slightly early for my flight on Tuesday.  It was a date that I had uttered more than a dozen times to coworkers, and friends, and anybody else who had happened to ask what my future plans were.  It was a date that I had been excitedly anticipating while at the same time, silently dreading.  A date that I never thought would come, but here it was, as luminous as the sun, waiting for me to open my eyes and take it in. 





The flight was as turbulent as they come, its every bump and sway magnified with the thought that my poor cat Bob was enduring it all just below in the plane's cargo compartment.  So between my fears of the terrible things that might become of him, not to mention how I'd even begin to break the news to my husband, it all sort of helped keep my mind off the true gravity of the situation.  I guess I had always pictured the flight to be quite emotional, especially when the pilot would be making his last announcement while the magnificence of the city appeared right outside my window.   But for some reason on this day, life decided to hide the city from me, as a complete blanket of fog made its every car, every building and every light, disappear as if I was landing into nothing at all.


Of course everything was absolutely fine as my wonderful mother was right there to pick me up with the kind of smile that I hadn't seen in eight years. And Bob oddly enough, seemed more mellow than I had ever seen him in his entire life, almost as if to tell me that he knew he belonged here too. But I must say that even after being here for two days now, setting up our new habitat within the finished cellar of my parent's house, it still really hasn't hit me yet that I don't live in California anymore.  And I think I mostly feel this way because that terrible guilt that would hover inside me during each past visit, continues to live within me, doing its darnedest to avoid eviction.   It's the guilt of not being around and the feeling that I need to spend every waking second with everybody I love before I once again fly away to my far away world.  But this time, I keep having to remind myself that the world my loved ones live in, is once again mine too.  And that I must start to not only realize the pains of my decision, but the beauties as well.