Yesterday I waved my Mommy off at the airport, managing not to cry until she was out of sight because she'd made me promise I wouldn't. And I didn't cry a ton - not like those early weeks the first time she left when I went to sleep with leaking eyes and woke up to the same salty ache.
"But we'll see them really soon" Says Jeremy. Others remind me of how little they see their same-state parents. Neither argument helps all that much.
Because the problem is that the only time we have these transatlantic days is weighted with the goodbye that's coming. It's measured out - a five day trip followed by three, four, five months apart, followed by another week's trip. Yes if I lived in England it's unlikely I'd spend an entire week with just my Mum, but that's not the point. The lack of careless time is the point. The sort of time where you can be grumpy and it doesn't matter, doesn't 'ruin' time... the sort of time where sleeping in doesn't steal hours from a day and reading a book isn't being unsociable - where saying goodbye doesn't generate tears.
And that's what I cry for, mostly, these days. I'm OK about not living with my mother - much as I love her, as a 28 year old married person (I couldn't bring myself to write 'woman'), that's not the best scenario. I just wish with the core of my core that I could have that luxury of being careless with the time spent with her - spent with all of them - safe in the knowledge that there's a hefty supply of it in waiting.
I chose this. And yes, he's worth it, but still it aches.
Yeah. Yeah.
ReplyDeleteI can't add much, I just feel this so deeply. I didn't choose this life, it's what I was born into, but now I'm choosing to cement it by going overseas myself just as my parents are returning to the US. I find myself super emotional over that loss of potential time in regular life together.