Mommie Dearest

My mother told me she was going to Thailand to teach tiny Thai children about four months ago. She had been talking about finding a teaching position abroad for a long time but I'd just assumed it was a passing flight of fancy and that she and her partner would end up in NYC, living like hippy activist educators in a tiny Brooklyn apartment.

Thailand is a lot further away than New York.

I'm very close with my mother. She is one of the most entertaining people I've ever encountered. When we get together, especially if my brother Huston is there, we become the most obnoxious table at any restaurant, one upping each others stories and jokes, smiling so hard our cheeks hurt.

She has this laugh that is so specific and so loud that as a child I would listen for it in the grocery store if I had wandered off. Her laughter always led me back to her.

She is a small woman, barely 5'3'', with big brown eyes, choppy brown(ish grey) hair, and skin that is always at least 4 shades darker than mine. I know we're Italian but I did not get the olive skin genes like she and my sister.

My Mom and Me 

She's been gone for three months. We talk on Skype a few times a week which is very nice. I can't imagine how much I'd miss her without it, but it's not the same.

She is literally living in the future, my today is her tomorrow. When we talk one of us is always sleepy—its either first thing in the morning for me and the evening for her or it's early for her and late for me. I miss being able to call her on my way to work in the morning or when I'm walking Lucy.

I especially miss being able to call her in the middle of the night when I'm panicking about my life, future, money, job, relationship, or whatever else makes makes my stomach churn and sleep an impossibility. She's the only person who listens to me until I'm completely done talking.

Its bad, too, because now I send her crazed e-mails, thousands of words, virtually no punctuation, just a stream of conscious, panicked rant. I know those e-mails make her worry, which isn't my intention. It's just that sometimes I have to let my crazy brain do its thing and since I don't have the verbal outlet anymore, I write it all down.

She knows me pretty well, being my mom and all, so I don't think it gives her undue anxiety. I guess the only difference between my verbal and written rants is that when we talk she can calm me down. Sometimes I just need to hear that everything is going to be OK. It's better, too, hearing it from someone who has made it through an eventful life with a positive attitude and wound up in an unexpected but happy place.

I miss my mom, but its reassuring to know that adventure and excitement are always possible if you're brave and willing to take chances.

Disclaimer: I am not actually crazy, but my life constantly in chaos so I have to work really hard to be sane and sometimes I take a mental break.