parkplace's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Cry Like My Mother Listening To: Farewell by Hundred Hands This is crazy. My mother has been trying to get me up to her New Hampshire house for the past week because it will be the last time I will be up there- she found someone to buy the house after being on the market for a year. My mother is now officially moving to North Carolina for good on Monday. I got up to my mothers house on Tuesday afternoon. Once I got there, we started packing. My mother first told me to start getting the stuff in the shed. So I go out there and grabbed the first box available- a huge cardboard box labeled "MEMORIES." So, I lugged it into the house and asked my mom what is in it. She looked down at the contents and said "it all memories when you all were young." So, we just sat down and started looking through it. We picked up newborn baby caps from the hospitals we were born in. We picked up drawings from kindergarden. We picked up TONS of photos of Stephan and I when we were babies and toddlers. I look over after digging through half of the MEMORY box content and I see my mother starting to cry. She cries exactly like me. She mumbled the sentence "I wish I was there for my boys" and then she broke down. Then I was hugging her and I broke down. It is just sad to see your mother cry. She was there for us when we were young- she just feels guilty for not raising us. She feels like she missed so much of us growing up. She feels left out from something she started and she feels so guilty for that. To be honest, I don't blame her. But she is so hard on herself that it is terrible to see that guilt on her face when she cries like I do. We finished the last photos in a more upbeat mood. We stared to pack more stuff- books, movies, canned goods, etc. I helped her on all the heavy stuff because of her bad knee from the car accident last March. As we pack, my mother is talking about how marvelous the house she putting an offer on in North Carolina is. And she is making plans on how to decorate my room. She is planning on me to move there and she is begging me all throughout the packing. And I do want to go with her down to North Carolina so incredably much. This will be the first and only time since my parents divorced- since I was seven in which my mother would have a stable and livible environment for her child(ren) to live in. I don't know if I should take that chance, on the count of I have a life up in New England- friends, family, school, a job. I could start a new life down there- new friends, new job, new school. But that requires so much work. And living with my Mother would not be eadier then living with my Father- she is crazily overprotecting, she wouldn't have a lot of money, and I still haven't told her that I was gay yet. So I would have to hide everything in order to live the life I have up here in Massachusetts. There are so many factors that play in this huge decision that I need to make. All I know is that my mother is moving down to North Carolina for good, wether I go with her or not. So, Wednesday comes and I am sceduled to take the 1:06 P.M. train home. So it's 12:00 and my mothers calls for a cab to take me to the taxi (she doesn't have a car because of the crash. She also used my cell phone 'cause she has no phone either). So, I am sorting boxes and thinking about taking a final walk around the woods when I hear the beep of a car and freeze- the taxi arrived. I wasn't even close to being ready to go to the train. I rushed to get all my stuff in my bag and I ran out of the house and my Mumma was waiting outside for me and we very quickly hugged and kissed and said bye just like we always did. I ran into the taxi and the Taxi Driver seemed a little heated. He greeted me by saying that he became terribly lost while attempting to get to my mothers house. I checked my cell phone for the time (my phone had about five minutes left before it was going to die) and it was 12:50- we had 16 minutes until the train left Newburyport station, which is a 25-minute drive. So, everything was hopless. He took a wrong turn and I know he did, but I didn't say anything. I don't know why I didn't. I didn't care all that much to inform him for some reason. He realized after driving down that wrong turn for five minutes that he was going the wrong way. She banged his hand on the maroon steering wheel, yelled "FUCK!" and made a three point turn, now driving on the other side of the road now. It was 1:04 and the Taxi Driver broke the silence, saying "listen kid, I got bad news: you're gunna miss the train." I gave him an extremly dissapointed and suprised look, even though I was suprised at all. He asked if I knew when the next train was arriving in Newburyport and I mumbled that I didn't knew even though I did. The next train was arriving at 2:45- almost two hours after the first. The Driver radioed another Driver and asked if he knew the next time for the train. He said 2:45. And they both exchanged thank-yous and the radio went back to its light static. There was a couple seconds of silence between the driver and I, until he asked if I heard that. I stated that I did and he paused for about five seconds and said that the Taxi Ride was free on the count that he got lost and it was his fault that i'm not on the 1:06 train home. I was shocked. I thanked him about five times after he said that. It was very nice of him to give me that ride for free. I was shocked and very happy. We eventually arrived at the Newburyport Train Station at 1:15. It was barren. I thanked him one last time and I went up to the platform, sat on a bench, and used the last of my cell phone battery to call my Dad about the new plans and to call Alex to pick me up at 3:30 at the Swampscott Train Station. I have planned with Alex to hang out with him on Wednesday for quite some time. So, for the two hours I waited for the train, I started to read "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" from where I left off. The train came on time and I boarded it. I gave the train conducter my money for a trip to Swampscott. The train began moving and I kept on reading "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower." The train kept on moving along- stopping at Rowley, then Ipswich. I was engulfed in the book. And I was reading when Charlie's sister was graduating High School. She was second to Valedictorian, so she gave a speech at her graduation. Then Charlie's mother started to cry. So Charlie and his older brother stared holding her and hugging her. She started to cry even more and she said these two words that hit me like a brick wall: My Boys. I came right back to reality. I realized that my mother said that when she was crying. Then it really hit me. The fact that I'm not going to see my mother for so long. It hit me the fact that I didn't stop to look at her and take in the moment when we said goodbye. I didn't really and truly hug my Mom went I left to go on that Taxi. I didn't look into her eyes before I left. I realized that I will never step foot into that house again. I will never sit on her private dock. I will never see her pond again. I will never cross the wooden overpass again. I realized that that Taxi drive will be the last I will ever take from my Mothers house. I realized that this train ride I was currently expieriancing will be my last ever. I realized that this is what I have been fearing all along: my Mother will not be close to me anymore. I broke down in so much tears. I cried just like my mother the whole train ride home. I was just thinking about my Mother and how far away she will be from me. I have a connection with her that none of my brothers or sister have with her. She calls me her favorite. You might hear that all Mothers don't have favorites and that they all love their children equally. My mother isn't like other mothers. I am her favorite child. I cry like my Mother and I cried the duration of the last train ride home. And I kept the ticket from my last train ride home. And I am going to mail that ticket down to North Carolina to my mother. And in the evelope will be a slip of paper. And on that slip of paper will be the words my boys. 1:57 a.m. - 06-24-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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