I rolled over and looked at the clock.
Fuck.
It was two.
In the afternoon.
I raised my hand to my eyes to block out the sunlight and rolled back over to my other side. I wanted more than anything to continue sleeping. I was just so, so tired. But I had to get up.
This day, I had to get up.
Two days after my Mother passed, it was Mother’s Day. My Boyfriend and I were still at her house, wrapping things up. It was my last day before I was to return to NYC. As I’ve mentioned, I now have a really inappropriate habit of writing things in my head before they happen. Picturing how things will unfold and how I’ll feel about them. Since Mother’s Day was the day I was supposed to be in NYC participating in the race I’d been training for, I thought I would post a picture on Facebook and Instagram of my feet in my new running shoes with the caption being something about how I was supposed to be in NYC to run in the Mother’ Day Race, but instead I was home after saying goodbye to my own sweet Mother. And then I’d state that I was still going to run the four miles in her honor.
And that I loved her.
I thought this would be a lovely tribute. But in reality the reason I wanted to do it was more selfish. One thing I’d realized was that I’d rather everyone just find out at once, rather than have to awkwardly respond to various individual texts and messages from friends who didn’t know, them saying, “Hey!! What’s been going on? Are you getting excited for the move home?? 🙂 ”
If someone would have told me this next part of the story before, I would have said, “Oh, isn’t that sweet? Trying to hold onto some part of your loved one while they passed? Well, whatever you have to do,” and then probably awkwardly patted their hand.
But it’s true, I know the exact moment my Mother passed. I had spent the morning at her side, saying all the things I ever wanted to say to her, because although she had never regained consciousness, I truly believed she could hear me every time I was there. But I never actually said goodbye because I was afraid that would scare her. After I wracked my brain to make sure there was nothing left to say, I told the nurses I was ready.
And then I left.
I had asked My Boyfriend to not join me for hospital visits as I knew my Mom would not like for him see her in that condition. So later that day, I went back alone where I told my Mom about our day. “We got burritos from that place by the grocery store, you know it right?” And then silently reprimanded myself for asking a question when she couldn’t answer. “So anyway, I got a burrito and when I was halfway through, I saw there was a lint ball in it! A LINT BALL! How does that even happen? I mean, I can understand a hair or a bug, but a lint ball?”I shook my head in disgust. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Then I told her how we’d taken My Dad, who’d come up for the day, to see our rental house that afternoon and how he’d loved it. “I took some pictures,” I said. “I can’t wait to show them to you.” And I thought I may have seen her nod.
But maybe not.
I’m not going to get into the details of my Mother’s death but I will say, it was was very shocking and it was very unexpected.
A few days after my dinner with Lux and McKenzie, I received the call that she was in the hospital. It was the morning of my date with Sean and Thalia to see The Lion King and when I hung up, I was bewildered, and freakishly thought, “I guess I’ll get ready for the show now.” I began to get dressed but as I was putting on my shoes, I started to shake uncontrollably.
You know, that kind of deep internal vibration that makes you feel as if your organs are going to rupture.
Two years ago, I reached out to my NYC friends and asked them, “If you only had one more year left in the city – what would be the things you’d most want to do?” I received a really unique and fun list of true NYC experiences. I vowed to do one thing a month until I had gotten through the whole list.
Naturally, since then, I’d done none of them.
But now, because I only had two months left, I was galvanized to make my way through my NYC Bucketlist. I prioritized the things I wanted to do and set about each week making one thing happen.
It was a really amazing journey.
“When Tracey first started running, she showed up wearing a fanny pack!” McKenzie said as she scrolled through her phone.
The salesperson looked up from where she was measuring my foot and cocked her head to the side. “Aw, that’s sweet.”
“Will you shut up?” I shot at McKenzie.
“What? You did,” she said. “Look, I took some pictures of you while you did your test run. I’ll text them to you.”
“Fine,” I said.
Last Spring one of Thalia’s friends, Alicia, who now is a friend of mine, asked me to join her “Do One Thing a Month That is Out of Your Comfort Zone” group. This group would meet on a weekend day and participate in a challenging dance class or a creative painting class or a unique cooking class or any of the other cool classes NYC had to offer. It was after one of these classes, when I spotted the storefront that would change my life.
“Do you have any news?”
Marc shook his head as he flipped open his take-out container. “Not really. I keep hearing conflicting reports.”
“Yeah, me too,” I sighed. “I mean, it could be as early as mid-March, late as June. That’s what I’ve heard.”
“What a fuckshow,” he said and then dug into his tiramisu.
One of our office mates joined us in the conference room. “So when do you think the next round of layoffs is coming?”
Marc and I gave each other the side-eye. “Who knows?” I said airily. Marc became engrossed in his dessert and I became entranced with the snowfall outside our Park Avenue window. The room became heavily silent.
Our coworker left, knowing she wasn’t going to infiltrate this meeting.
Not Quite A Cougar 