This said during the same day that I a) had committment on my mind, (namely, people who commit to things and then disappoint) and b) started a new workout journey – boot camp classes at this fitness studio.

I have to confess: yesterday was tough for me.

Here’s the deal: Amazon local was running a special – $25 for a month of unlimited boot camp classes at Gunn’s. It sounded great, with one glitch – the best timing for the classes for my schedule would be to show up at 6 a.m., three days a week. I’m not exactly a “wake up before dawn to work out” kind of person. So much so that I have even run some of my marathon training runs (not the long ones, of course) during the heat of the day in the middle of summer. I call it “a good challenge” but really it’s “I’m too lazy to get up at 5 a.m.”

So, I wanted to do the deal. But I know myself and I know a month of waking up early would require something big. So I asked three of my favorite workout partners if they’d like to join me for a month of pre-dawn madness. Two of them politely declined, citing scheduling conflicts and a lack of desire. I totally respect that and was grateful for the directness. The third friend said he’d think about it, then hemmed and hawed about it for a few days. I got a slight impression I was being blown off, so I had actually written off the deal in my mind – I was ready to move on to something else, something that someone would want to do with me. Even bought a zoomba deal with Meghan.

But then my friend came back and said he was “in”.  What a surprise! I wasn’t going to tell him nevermind, as I felt that would be rude. So if he was in, I was in. So, a month of 6 a.m. workouts – I could do this. Knowing he’d be there with me, I could do this.

He had me sign us both up while he was on the phone with me, so I bought mine first, then his. And then something weird happened – moments after I told him the deal had been bought, he started backpedaling. Saying he really needed to figure out his workout schedule and it was only $25 and maybe he was just buying it to get me off his back, etc. I was confused – I actually wasn’t on his back about doing it at all – if anything, I was simply pushing him to give me a definitive answer.  But, I chose to ignore this red flag – surely he wouldn’t have us waste $50 if he didn’t have any intention of going, right?

Wrong.

In the days that followed, I tried to ask him when he wanted to start. I started getting nonanswers again. I had originally suggested February or March. I took a look at my schedule and realized if I planned my hot yoga classes right, I could actually start on Jan. 23. When I asked him about it … I got crickets chirping. Finally, after days of asking with no response, I got a “What happened to February or March?” I responded that I’d be happy to stick to our original plan if that works better for him, but I just needed an answer of some sort – so that I could plan my workout schedule around his (which I was happy to do.) Again, I got nothing. The absolute silence about the whole thing really hurt my feelings – he would respond if I would text him about other things, but would flat-out ignore me if I asked about boot camp. What I didn’t want was to push it off until February or March only to be blown off. But I also didn’t want to start without him on January 23 if he actually did intend to do it with me, because then I would be rude to him. I just needed to know one way or the other!

A few days ago, he finally confessed his real issue: he’d just decided to sign up for a running race that was requiring a lot training. The race was mid-February, and he just wasn’t sure he’d have time to do the boot camp before then. I took a look at his training schedule and agreed with him. I asked him if it would work better for him if we started boot camp in mid-February, after the race. Again, I got no real answer, just a bunch of hemming and hawing. He told me he was training for an even bigger race in April, so I knew even as I asked the question that if I was relying on him to show up with me, I would be sadly disappointed. The truth is, if he had just told me no at the beginning, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Clearly, he should have just said no when I asked him the first time. And if he committed to me then he shouldn’t have committed to the race.

So I made one last-ditch effort: I asked him to contact Regina Gunn and ask her what she recommends. She works with runners all the time, so perhaps she’d have a suggestion for him – either “don’t do it at the same time” or “do it and I’ll cater your workout to your running schedule and make you an even better runner.” Either way, at least we’d have an answer – I was getting very frustrated by this point, as I was trying so hard to be flexible but I was feeling as if my time was being disrespected. He agreed to that and seemed happy with the solution. Finally, a conclusion.

When I texted him two days later on Friday (boot camp was to begin on Monday) to ask what Regina had said, I got a response of “I haven’t talked to anyone about anything.”

At that point, I was done. I love this friend dearly, he is one of my closest friends, but I will never again invite him to something that either a) someone else isn’t already doing with me or b) I’m not willing to do alone.

—

I give you that rant not to call this friend out (Notice I didn’t use his name. And I have lots of runner friends so don’t even try to guess.), but to give you my frame of mind come Sunday night as I prepared for the first day, alone, of boot camp. I selected my clothes for the next day. I set up the coffeepot to go off at 4 a.m. I set my alarm for 4:30, 4:45, and 5 a.m. I typed the address into the GPS. It was a 30-minute drive from my house, so I allowed 40. There would be no traffic this early, and that would get me there 10 minutes early in case I needed to fill out paperwork. By 8:30 p.m. on Sunday night, I was relaxing with a glass of chamomile tea and an ambien, prepared for a good night’s sleep so that waking up early wouldn’t be so brutal.

Dragged myself out of bed around 4:50 a.m. Everything went as planned. I even got to watch 15 minutes of the news and sip my coffee before leaving at 5:20. As predicted, no traffic. I got over to Independence Boulevard, then hit a glitch. My GPS told me I was at the place, but I didn’t see it. Checked my phone directions and noticed it was sending me somewhere different. So, I followed the phone but it was confusing as it’s not turn-by-turn and it was really foggy out and I couldn’t see street signs. I ended up driving around for 30 minutes, lost. I finally realized the issue – I’d typed in the wrong street name to the car’s GPS. I had typed Independence Boulevard, not the correct Independence Pointe Parkway.  Pulled over and corrected address. Watched the time getting closer and closer to 6 a.m.

Finally got to Independence Pointe Parkway. It was 5:56. Just in time. Except, I still couldn’t find the place. Drove up and down the whole street, looking. I honestly thought about scrapping the whole thing and just going home. Frustration doesn’t even begin to describe how I was feeling. This whole thing had been a pain in my ass from the very beginning. But, at 6:01, I called the phone number on the web site to ask for directions. Turns out, there are two Independence Point Parkways. Uhm, ok … Of course, I was on the wrong one. She directed me to the correct one and I finally arrived at 6:15. I was late, and class had started, but Regina was awesome about sweeping me right in and getting me set up with a mat and some hand weights. I jumped right in as she called for us to do pushups.

For the next 45 minutes, I worked my ass off. I was trying to push it a little bit harder to make up for the 15 minutes I lost. Everyone else looked sweaty and tired before I even walked into the room, so it only seemed fair. One girl smiled at me as I walked in the door, making me feel welcome even as I was disrupting their workout. Everyone else seemed a little bit in their own world. Two girls sitting next to each other gave each other “five” a couple of times, and it made me wish I really wasn’t doing this alone. I can be chatty and tend to make friends easily but this was weird because they were already working out so it wasn’t as if I could turn to the guy sweating bullets and breathing heavy next to me and say, “So, been coming here long?”

So, class was good, but it was lonely.

I won’t say it was all bad, though. I had no less than 3 friends text me that morning and say “How was class? I can’t wait to hear all about it!” I gotta tell you, that feels pretty supportive.

—

This post is getting way too long for me to even go into how I lost my purse after class and couldn’t pick up my prescription because my credit card and insurance card were in said purse, and that I wondered if I’d left it at home or at boot camp or dropped it in the parking lot on my rush to get in the door and ended up finding it stuck behind the glove box in which I’d thrown it in before class. I now have one disassembled glove box which I’ve chosen not to worry about at the moment.

I also won’t go into how my family has been dealing with some stuff that have required us to step up and help someone in need of us right now, but that’s also going on, and that took up several hours of my day yesterday. The great, great part about it was that I got to spend the day babysitting my nephews with my mom while my sister and dad and brother-in-law actually stepped up to do the actual burden. So I got lucky and got to spend the day with two of the handsomest gentlemen I know. But, as Mom put it when I told her about getting lost and losing my purse, “You’ve panicked enough for one day.” After babysitting, my plans were to go home, watch some shameful reality TV (The Bachelor, of course,) and go to bed early.

—

But something kept nagging at me. There is yoga class at Gunn’s studio on Monday nights. I originally was thinking it was an either/or type of thing. No one goes to two classes a day, right? But as we were leaving class, she’d called out: “Remember, yoga tonight.”

That planted a seed. I actually texted my friend who’d bailed on me to see if he wanted to reconsider and hit up yoga. He had a work commitment so couldn’t. I mentioned it to my family and my dad said he’d take over babysitting duty with my mom if I wanted to head out to get to class. I texted Stacey to tell her I might go and she asked me to find out what it would cost for her to drop in on a class – she was interested to check out the yoga portion. She got me excited to try it myself so I could report back to her. Since class is only once a week, and my trial is only for 4 weeks, I couldn’t say no.

—

And wow, I’m so glad I went. It was totally different than any other yoga class I’ve ever attended. Only 3 students there, including myself. One of them was the girl who’d smiled at me that morning as I walked in, and she turned out to be just as nice as her first impression. She even gave me some water – I’d consumed all mine on the way to class, assuming incorrectly there’d be a water fountain in which I could fill up when I got there.

Crow. Yes, I did this! Now I just have to learn how to do it without falling after a few seconds.

 This was not the quiet, meditative yoga I’d been to in the past, nor the intense, crazy workout that hot yoga provides. This reminded me of four friends (including the teacher), hanging out in someone’s house saying “Hey, look what I can do” except one of us (the teacher) was the expert. I got lots of one-on-one instruction. I got a great workout and stretch. I got to meet three great people and hear about their days. And I was even able to do crow – first with the teacher’s help, and then on my own. Only for about 5 seconds but that’s the longest yet. And the atmosphere was so great that while I was in it I was able to say “Look, look, look I’m doing it!” and everyone in the room was super excited for me.

I texted Stacey right after, excited to tell her about it and told her she should consider coming to at least one class with me – per class, it’s insane ($20), but it might be worth it for the practice. Will only make us better at hot yoga, for sure. She was excited and said she’s going to plan to join me next Monday evening.

—

Woke up this morning feeling sore all over, in the best possible way. This is going to be a good month. And the 4:30 a.m. wakeups? I got this, even if I have to go it alone.

My sister and I had a good laugh over that one, and we decided to file it into another of those “Mia stories” categories that just have to be shared with you.

So, in the spirit of the holidays, let me tell you about Mia’s Charlie Brown Christmas Trees.

—

Is it every child that thinks the size of the Christmas tree in their house is “normal” while every other tree is either “awesomely big” or “tiny”? That was my perspective, at least. My family had the “normal” trees. Not big. Not small. Normal.

And on the Saturday before Christmas each year, we’d visit Hickory, where Grandmama and Grandaddy’s tree was always small and dainty and the decorations were perfectly coordinated, much like Grandmama herself. The tiny, white lights would whisper calm and peace on earth as you entered the formal living room, the room which at other times of the year was reserved for the ladies to have afternoon coffee, in fragile blue and white tea cups with saucers. I was allowed to sit with the grown-ups as they shared their coffee and conversation, so long as I was very careful and did not break any of the ceramics or other delicate items. The coffee time with the women, while the men watched golf in the other room, was always my favorite part of each visit.

In contrast, there was no formal living room at Mia and Pops’ lake house, just one, giant, den surrounded by other, open rooms. The laughter was loud and the afternoon activities included rolling around on the floor wrestling or chasing each other and listening to the adults yelling at the TV, where it was always football or basketball or baseball. And at Christmastime, Mia and Pops had the biggest trees ever. They weren’t so much tall (though they were as tall as the ceiling would allow; sometimes the topper would even be on sideways, flush against the ceiling) as they were fat. From the back door (which was really the front door, but that’s another story), you’d see mismatched decorations, including one that made a god-awful noise (it literally squawked like an injured bird when plugged in) and big, tacky, multi-colored lights that I absolutely loved. What you didn’t see, on first glance, was the secret playground inside the tree. Each year, Mia would hide things “inside” of it. There was a white ladder, always leaned against the tree itself, hidden by the sappy branches. On the ladder were dolls, reaching toward the angel atop the tree, playing in of their own miniature wonderland, unseen to anyone who didn’t know to look for them. I always knew, though, because I (and likely all of my other cousins and siblings) had the inside scoop: Mia would greet me with a wink, a smile, and a nod toward the tree. “Go see what you can find,” she’d whisper, and I’d scamper off to look.

Picking the tree was a tradition in and of itself for Mia and Pops. There was a certain tree farm, between York and Clover, that was the best place to get a Christmas tree, so they said. So that’s where they would go, every year. My dad remembers trapsing through that tree lot even when he was a child, helping his parents to pick out the perfect tree for Pops to cut down and bring home. And after Pops died, Mia insisted on continuing the tradition, and it became the annual retreat for her, my dad and my uncle Larry instead.

If I haven’t mentioned how frugal Mia was, perhaps now is the time. She was wash-the-bread-bags-and-hang-them-on-the-clothesline-for-reuse frugal. She was expiration-dates-on-food-are-merely-a-suggestion frugal. It didn’t matter that she had plenty of money to last the rest of her life and then some.

So, as the years went on, her desire to spend what she deemed “so much money” on a Christmas tree waned. In coordination, the tree farm that was once the place to go, over the years, became, uhm, not so much.  The prices had gone up and the quality had gone down. But IT’S TRADITION SO THAT’S WHERE I WANT TO GO, she would say. And it has to be with my two boys.

So Larry, my dad and Mia would walk through the lot, pick a tree, cut it, put it up in the den, and then proceed to listen to Mia complain about how ugly the tree was.

And each year, the trees got uglier and smaller. But she absolutely refused to go anywhere else. It’s where Pops had always taken her, so it was where she would go. Every year until the last one.

And yet, no matter the tree size, she still managed to find a way to hide the dolls.

I tend to keep the news on in the background while I’m working, and I tend to only half pay attention if I’m working. So it took me a little while to tune into the fact that there was an actual tornado heading our way.

There were two tornadoes, actually, and one seemed to be threatening Mia’s house. I knew Mom was at work and Dad would be there alone, and he may or may not be paying attention to the news. So I texted them both, and Dad said he hadn’t been watching the news but he would now. “Be careful,” I warned him. “Heading your direction.”

I finished my work for the evening, then decided it might be best if I was hanging out on the first floor of my house. I and the dogs migrated down to the living room, where I turned the news back on. When the weather forecaster started talking about streets that are just a few minutes from here, I thought it might be a good idea to get into the hallway. My dogs thought I was nuts but they chose to go along with my strange plan, and we huddled together until the storm passed (which was only about 10-15 minutes.)

I have to admit I felt a bit silly about the whole thing. The news was talking about tornadoes, and I could hear the wind and thunder, but was hiding in the hallway a bit much?

The nighttime news brought the aftermath: people were killed, homes were destroyed, cars were flipped. Suddenly, the hallway hideout didn’t seem so silly, after all.

—

I couldn’t help but thinking about the first time I remember hearing the word “tornado”. My aunt Nancy had called my mom, and they were talking on the phone about looking for funnel clouds. After she got off the phone, I asked her what a tornado was. She must have said the word “twister” at some point during her explanation to me, because I gazed out the window, expecting to see a ballerina, wearing all pink, twirling around in the sky. A tornado sounded absolutely beautiful! I didn’t understand why Mom seemed so concerned.

However wonderful the tornadoes must look, however, we would always end up in the hallway when they would beckon, waiting them out. No windows in the hallway meant no ballet performance for me to watch. Oh, well.

—

9.22.1989: Hurricane Hugo knocked down power lines like matchsticks on Hwy 51 in Charlotte near the Hwy 16 intersection. Charlotte Observer photo by Davie Hinshaw

Of course, I’ll never forget 1989, when Hurricane Hugo came barrelling through Fort Mill. I’d known for a while by then that the ballerina story was pure trickery. In fact, Mom described it as “sounding like a freight train, and if you hear it you better get into a ditch,” which seemed pretty freaky to me. So when Mom woke me in the middle of the night to come sleep in the hallway to wait out the storm, I was happy to be away from my bedroom, with its external wall and window.

The 5 of us slept, end to end in sleeping bags, in the hallway all night. Mom on one end, Dad on the other. I say “slept” but what I really remember is watching the ceiling, where the attic fan vents would open wide and then loudly slam shut all night in response to the wind. I never felt unsafe.

Daylight showed how devastating the storm was. Trees were down on our fence. Power was lost. We had no water. Food was transferred to coolers, and we walked back and forth from the neighborhood pond to fill up old jugs and buckets in order to flush toilets. All the neighbors pitched in to help each other clean up the mess. A Duke Power worker was electrocuted and died in Fort Mill. He had been working on our street earlier that day, trying to restore power. A huge tree fell into my grandparents’ bedroom, landing on their bed. Luckily, Mia and Pops had been waiting out the storm in their closet, so they were unharmed (a side note: They totally forgot to wake my Uncle Larry, who was living with them temporarily and sleeping in the back bedroom. We still joke that they ran to the closet and left their son to fend for himself!) The roof was ripped off of the science wing at my middle school. For 3 days, we lived with flashlights and lake toilets and food from the cooler. And then, Dad had a brilliant idea.

“Pack up the car, Brenda,” he said. “Let’s go to Disney World.”

Our first stop, a few hours out of town, was at a Waffle House. It was the first electricity and real food we’d eaten for days. What a luxury! Best. Waffle. Ever.

The waitress asked “Why Disney?”‘ when we told her our plan. “Because they have electricity,” Dad answered matter-of-factly, as if to say, “Why not Disney?”

We spent several days there, and we had a fabulous time. We went to MGM and Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Rode Space Mountain and hung out with Disney characters and spent time enjoying the air conditioning and restaurant eating. By the time we got back, school had been back in session for a couple of days and we’d missed it. All my friends were totally jealous when they found out where I’d been. Score!

So, you may have heard me reference this little piece of magic that I have recently discovered. Joy Bauer’s “Your Inner Skinny” is a perfect guide to nutrition, in my opinion. She shows you how to get your fruits and vegetables, proteins, fats and carbs all balanced in a healthy way that helps you get skinny. I’ve been following it on and off the past few months (when I’m in town, mostly) and it’s just awesome.

So, when I was at my sister’s house a few weeks ago and saw another Joy Bauer book, I had to flip through it. And I liked what I saw. Decided I needed to get it at some point to have a bigger selection when it came to recipes.

On the next trip to the grocery store, I stopped at first by Borders to see if they might still have the book, and maybe on super sale since the store was closing. One problem: I got there a little too late, as the store was already closed. So I checked Target a couple of doors down, and they didn’t have it. “Oh well,” I said to Jeff, “Maybe Amazon will have it.”

—

In seemingly unrelated news, I have been a troubled sleeper since … well, forever. I will wake up if the neighbor down the street sneezes too loudly. If my pinkie toe is not perfectly comfortable, I can’t sleep. I’ve been called the “Princess and the Pea” on more than one occasion. I just always assumed that this was the way it was. Waking up several times a night = normal. Being irritated at myself because I can’t sleep and I need to sleep and I have to get up in 3.5 hours and if I don’t go to sleep RIGHT NOW I’m gonna be in real trouble tomorrow = normal.

Until … a little birdie named Anil introduced me to Ambien.

It was his prescription, and I know I’m not supposed to take other people’s prescriptions. And I told him I did NOT like the idea of sleeping pills. They are addictive, even if just psychologically, and if I think I have trouble sleeping now – imagine adding to that feeling a dependency on a pill and what if I don’t have the pill and I’m addicted to it? (I said all of this before I’d even tried the pill!)

But then, I decided to give it a try. And I had my first good night’s sleep in … well, maybe ever. It was simple. I went to sleep. And then I woke up. No tossing and turning. No mind racing. No “I’m not situated just right and my left knee is not perfect so I’ll never sleep.” And I was rested. And happy.

So I promptly went to my doctor and got my own prescription.

And for the most part, on the nights I take it, I get an awesome amount of sleep, wake up refreshed and ready to face the world.

—

But there is that little warning that says if you don’t go right to sleep and you’re on the Ambien, you may have memory loss. This is the drug that infamously contributed to Patrick Kennedy’s Capitol Hill accident. I’ve even seen it firsthand, such as the night that Anil called me and told me he wanted to adopt a dog that I’d mentioned I’d seen at the NC Brewers festival. Not only did I not know he wanted a dog, but I couldn’t understand why he would want to adopt a dog in N.C. – the logistics of getting her to Phoenix would be fairly complicated. At that, he started researching dog breeds and trying to decide which would be the perfect dog for him. I’m a dog lover, so I relished this conversation and spent probably an hour on the phone with him talking about dog options.

 Turns out, he didn’t want to adopt a dog. In fact, the next day he had no memory of the entire conversation. I told him to check his web history and make sure he hadn’t adopted a dog online somehow; he might have a surprise waiting for him when he got home!

—

So, one night I took my ambien and apparently I didn’t go straight to bed. It happened to be the same week as I’d been shopping for the Joy Bauer book.  I had no clue anything was out of the ordinary, though, until the next morning when I checked my email and I had an email confirmation from Amazon.

Hmm, what did I order from Amazon? The whole thing felt fairly familiar even though I didn’t have a real memory of it. More like a déjà vu  feeling. So I clicked. And I had to laugh at myself. Because this is what showed up at my house a few days later. Not one Joy Bauer book, but an entire library of them:

So, there you have it, friends. I will now have more nutrition knowledge than I ever asked for. And yes, I could have returned them, but the truth is, they all look awesome and I can’t wait to try them out. But I have learned my lesson – and I try to not be on my phone anymore while I’m waiting for the Ambien to kick in. It could have been worse – I could have adopted a pet …

The bad thing about it is re-entering the SouthEast, and while everyone else is grateful that the humidity is finally starting to break, I walk outside and can barely breathe. Acclimating = fun times.

The lucky thing about having a sister who is a runner (and a kick-ass runner at that) is not having to face the hills and humidity alone. She accompanied me on a three-mile run on Thursday in her very hilly neighborhood in Greenville.

I warned her that I was going to slow her down, as I was not used to hills. She warned me that she was going to slow me down, as she’d not had time to run since she’s a new mom. So, we set out together, both of us questioning our abilities.

We ran for about a mile, and then there was a hill to run up. Pretty much straight up. And we went for it. And she was running so fast, I was just trying to keep up, not slow her down. And so I held my own, as much as I didn’t feel want to. And then, right before I asked for a walk break, I glanced at my watch. We’d been running 8:28 mile, and it had been a tough hill.

During that walk break I commented to her, “We were keeping a pretty good pace for that hill.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You were running really fast.”

“Me? I was just keeping up with you!”

“No!” she said, “I was trying to keep up with you!”

This is what sisters are for. I told her we should race together, in that case!

 We were going to have the party anyway, but then 1/3 of the family ended up invited to a wedding that day (from their other side of the family) and so then the party was canceled. And that sucks.

There are two major reasons this sucks.

1) She’s gone, and it sucks that she’s gone, and I want to celebrate with her.

2) A big fear of hers, one that she expressed to me often, was that the family would not get together after she was gone.

 I always thought she was being a bit overdramatic when she said this – of course we will all still get together. We are family, after all. One (very important, nonetheless) person doesn’t make or break an entire group’s habits.

But then, as I left her house the day of the funeral, and I said goodbye to one of my cousins who lives on the West Coast, I found myself wondering, “Will I ever see her again?”

Of course I will, I said to myself, but in the weeks since I’ve had that thought, it’s popped into my head many times.

We were always close growing up. Mia has 9 grandchildren, and we gathered often at her house for fun times at the lake, Christmases, etc. But as I think about it more and more, I realize the togetherness faded as people grew up and started their own families. Much of my time at her house was spent just me and her, or me and her and my siblings and my parents, aunt and uncle. Of course, I still saw some of my cousins – sometimes. But I had not seen many of them in years - since her 90th birthday party (and some even before that.)

That’s not to say things weren’t good. A cousin on the west coast called Mia often - and she was always sending her letters and gifts, which Mia would happily show me. She went to the beach every year with other cousins. And I still felt super close to all of them even if I hadn’t seen them – one of my cousins even officiated my wedding. A cousin in Seattle and I emailed frequently for a long time. We have a good family.

But Mia always worried. She was sad that the Christmases together were from years past. She feared we’d never gather once we didn’t have her to gather around.

And so, as her 95th approached, we wanted to give her that togetherness. That time at the lake. And it sucks she didn’t make it long enough for us to have that.

But a week after she died, my siblings and I hosted my parents’ anniversary party. And something really odd happened: My uncle, who never goes anywhere, came. He’s never even been to my house before. And yesterday, as Kevin and I left Jenny’s house in Greenville, we stopped to see my aunt Josie (which really isn’t that unusual, we have spent a lot of time at her house. But she made a point to make sure we knew she wanted to see us, and Kevin and I spoke about how much we wanted to see her, if only for a few minutes.) And I realized something yesterday - we are all trying.

The family will never be the same without her, that much I know. But I wish to give her this for her birthday – to prove her wrong. To show her that she raised us all right, that the strength of the family will continue and that we will all make the effort, even if we don’t have her to gather us anymore.

I miss you, Mia.

It wasn’t by choice.

I grew up in Fort Mill, SC, a small town where everyone knew each other. My friends were mostly friends I’d had since childhood, and there was a certain security about knowing that my closest allies were always just a phone call or a walk up the street away.

The summer after my sophomore year was shaping up to be the best yet. We were all starting to get licences and hand-me-down cars and a little bit of freedom. I even had my first job; I was a cashier at the local Winn-Dixie, which meant I had a little bit of money (which at the time seemed like a lot of money). My friends and I spent the summer driving around town, getting into what little trouble we could at 15. Which meant lots of time playing on the moving sidewalks at the airport (before the days of heightened security), hanging out at minor league baseball games, knocking on boys’ windows in the middle of the night to see if they wanted to come out to Waffle House …

And then, in a blink, it all changed.

Dad decided to take a job in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. A way more beautiful part of the country than the upstate, but that meant nothing to me as suddenly my friends were all going to be four hours away. All of them.

And I had a week to say goodbye.

I quit my job the day I found out and refused to work a notice. If I only had 7 days left, I was certainly not going to spend them at a grocery store.

Amy and I stalked my dad’s office in Lake Wylie, hoping our pitiful looks would get him to change his mind. When that didn’t work, we went to her house and called my mom to see if we could talk some sense into her. Still, no luck.

And finally, we conceded. Jenny and Amy and Michelle helped me pack up my room, one sweater and snapshot at a time. They made promises to visit, and some would, and some wouldn’t. We talked about how surely this wasn’t for real.

And as I said my goodbyes to my friends and my grandparents and that boy I had a crush on that summer (luckily it was easy to knock on his window; there was a handy a/c unit just below it that was certainly meant to be climbed on), I’m certain that what was on my mind was how I was going to go on without the people that meant so much to me.

What I probably wasn’t thinking of was how life was going to go on without me.

How my friends would cope without me. If I would leave an emptiness in their hearts the way they would leave in mine.

I knew that it would matter to me that I was leaving this place that I loved, the only place I knew. But I’m not sure I knew how much the place and people I loved would miss me.

In fact, the day of the move, I was finally ready to face what was to come. The car was packed and Jenny walked across the street to say goodbye before I left.

I handed my sister my camera, and I asked her to take a photo of me and Jenny. A last snapshot of my time in a place where I felt safest in my life.

And as the camera was turned on us, I wrapped my arms around Jenny’s neck and smiled for the photo. And I realized, after the shot was taken, that in that same moment, she had started bawling.

And it was then that it hit me that this affected her, too. That this affected all of my friends. That it wasn’t just me that was going through a change. My best people were going through a change, too.

The photo didn’t turn out. The flash should have gone off and it didn’t. I got silhouettes of two figures, and if you look at the photo closely, you can see my smile and her tears.

My adventure was her loss. I was losing, too, but I would gain just as much. She was just losing. And in that way, my move across the state was way worse for her than it ever was for me.

—

I have been thinking about that photograph this week, as now I am facing adventures that are not my own, but ones that belong to others. A friend told me this week that change is constant, and this I know, I just don’t understand why everything is changing at once. And I know that’s not for me to know. That my role is to be supportive and hopeful as I send you off into your new world.

But don’t look too closely at our last moments … because I might have a hard time smiling for them.

P.S. We only lived in Beaufort for a year, then I got to come back to Fort Mill. A story for another time, but my friends had missed me, and they welcomed me back with open arms. I always know I have a home in their hearts, even today.

It had been a long and emotional day at the hospital, and it would be the last day of Mia’s life, though of course, we did not know this yet.

A nurse named Cyndi would turn out to be an angel on earth for us that day. For, as day turned into evening, she was the one who told us to make sure we spoke to Mia, because Mia could surely hear us. My aunt Josie, my brother Kevin and I crowded around her bedside. The time went by quickly as we talked about the old days – and you know there were hours of stories to fill. There was the time she turned to my sister Jenny in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, and she said, “Have you ever seen so many fat people in your life?” Of course, she spoke loudly since she was hard of hearing, so it’s very likely everyone in the waiting room heard this. There was also the time I took her for a ride on the light rail for the first time. As we waited at the epicenter for the train to pick us up, Mia glanced around at the very, um, urban crowd, then turned to me and loudly said, “when is Mayor McCrory going to do something about this gang problem?” I shushed her, and she said – loudly – “Good point. We don’t want to get shot.”

We talked about the time I stayed with her for a week while she was in rehab. She was very particular that week, making me open the curtains, then close the curtains, depending on the time of day and the way the sun was coming in, and her mood. I was constantly opening and shutting curtains! By the end of the week I never wanted to see a curtain again. Then there was the clock issue. The clock hung above the bathroom door, so she wanted me to leave the bathroom light on and the door cracked just enough to shine light on the clock – so she would know what time it was at any point that she woke. Problem was, the nurses would come in every couple of hours to check on her, then would then go into the bathroom to wash their hands, and they’d mess up our system. So every couple of hours, I’d have to get up to fix it.

But, in addition, there were many more shining moments that week. Such as the point where Mia turned to me and said, “You know, we could sneak out of here, go see a movie, and then get our toes done …”

That last night at the hospital, as evening turned into midnight and later, I didn’t want to sleep because I feared finding the worst when I woke. In the tiny ICU room, Josie and Kevin settled into reclining chairs, and I curled up next to her in the hospital bed. The nurse told me that feeling me beside her would bring her comfort. So I made sure I was touching her, lest she forget I was there. As we turned off the lights and settled into a broken sleep, I reached up and pulled the curtains closed. Then I said my last words to her. “There you go, Mia,” I said, “I closed the curtains for you.”

Also, if you’re curious about the makeover results, here they are:

He was so excited and surprised every time we blew bubbles!

Enjoying a dinner around the table. I love it when my home is full!

I didn’t get any photos of Caleb because when I was holding him my hands were full! But he is absolutely adorable.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the diapers, that was the advantage of having the kids’ parents around! And when Cai had a dirty diaper I suckered Kevin into changing it since they are both boys. I figured if I’ve been told that (by Jeff) about the girls, then it works in the reverse, right?

= Dad got a speeding ticket. That was when I learned that people are not in good moods after getting speeding tickets. Mom actually had to pull me aside and inform me of this fact, when I was getting my feelings all hurt over nothing.

= Jenny and I were singing “Baby Got Back” and we got to the part where it says “me me so horny“.
Kevin: “What does horny mean?”
Me and Jenny (in snooty tones): “We are not telling you.”
Kevin: “If you don’t tell me, I’m asking Dad.”
Me and Jenny (calling Kevin’s obvious bluff): “We’re not telling you.”
Kevin (calling our bluff of his bluff): “Daaaad, what does horny mean?”
Silence. More silence. Dad clears his throat, then more silence. Finally, Dad: “Uhm … I don’t know.”

= And then, days into the trip, the incident.
Kevin: “I think I’m gonna throw up. Blech.” (pukes all over the place.)
Me, fearing the worst had happened and that he’d puked all over my stuff: “My Caboooooodle!!!”

Of course, he had not puked on my Caboodle, nor anywhere near it. I have no idea why that was the first thing I was worried about when my poor baby brother was sick. Ok, I do know why: I was 13 years old.

But to this day, all Jenny or Kevin have to say is “My Caboooooodle!!!” and it elicits tons of laughter from all of us.

I write this because I’d forgotten all about Caboodles until I watched “Hot Tub Time Machine” with Anil last week and they mentioned Caboodles. “Caboodles!” I exclaimed. “Oh my gosh, I loved my Caboodle!”

“What’s a Caboodle?” he asked.

Of course, I totally freaked out. I did a google search and found out THEY STILL SELL THEM. I am so getting one.