I Didn't Disappear!

"If you get tired learn to rest, not quit!"

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They keep repeating, repeating, repeating. The firsts are the hardest: the first birthday, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Mother’s Day. The first Mother’s Day, now at this phase in the adventure in life without a mom, has been the hardest. Christmas is celebrated with family at home. It always has been, always will be. Same with Thanksgiving and Easter, and the people are together, all people, friends, and family, together to celebrate the holiday. But Mother’s Day is a holiday celebrated alone. A phone call to your mom, a card, maybe some flowers, but it’s very solo, and it's to celebrate one person. However, it isn’t like a birthday because that's celebrating their creation; it's a holiday to celebrate what they made, what a mother creates. Life. So the hardest part was celebrating my mother, who created me and my life while it was shrouded by death and darkness.

As I watched mothers and daughters all around me together laughing and smiling, and enjoying each other, my day was shrouded by a cloud. A cloud of death that I’ve already been fighting for months, but decided to get a little lower, a little closer, and a little heavier. I have avoided watching mothers and their daughters together because it hits that memory of my mom, and to the most part, it's been fairly easy and successful, but to have a day dedicated to the very thing you want to avoid makes it that much harder to avoid it. So I sat there with my head held high, knowing that my mom was behind me even though I couldn’t see her. She was there behind me, hand on my shoulder, and I took every emotion, every single tear I felt I needed to cry, I cried, and every single time I needed to stop and take a breath, I took it. I was so fortunate to have my boyfriend with me all day because we were driving to Houston on the way to Colorado, and he was my rock that helped me through all the emotions.

Now, why haven’t I been present lately? Between finals, tennis, and getting my car ready to go, the days seemed consumed by everything that I needed to do, except writing. I successfully finished school with good grades, which took a lot of weight off my shoulders. I did wait till graduation to see my friends graduate, and once that was done, it was time to go home. We started driving to Colorado two days ago, and I decide, I am going to write this post in the car, no matter how much I don’t want to. So little by little, while I sat in the passenger seat watching the world fly by through the window, I wrote. Our trip took three days, one to Houston, then to Amarillo, and the third to Colorado Springs to see my grandparents and my cousin's graduation. This will be the first time I introduce my boyfriend to my family, and the butterflies in my stomach seem to keep growing larger and larger. But the plan doesn’t stop there. I keep joking that I’m a Crimmel and I am currently Crimmeling, and while my boyfriend isn’t a Crimmel, he is Crimmeling with me. What is Crimmeling, you ask? Crimmeling is when I do the thing I am best at, teleporting around the world. From Mississippi to Texas to Colorado, driving, and then to California on a plane. That is this week's itinerary. Being in as many places as I can at once. Once we finish in California, it's back to Denver flying, then to Aspen driving, and after we get the club ready, back to California, but driving this time. This is Crimmeling at its finest and something that I am really good at doing.