The Tuesday we met, I woke up nervous even though I was past the point I thought I had to be. The hard part was over. I already asked my parents a few days before, and more importantly, they were okay with it. My mom - who is really who I'm talking about whenever I'm referring to 'my parents' in this context - was even giving me suggestions about what we could do when we finally met up in Brooklyn. Hearing them lifted the weight of the bulk of the worry surrounding meeting up, which made me feel relieved, but at the same time, it almost felt like I was cheated. I was physically prepared for it to be a struggle to make happen. Remember how I kept telling you over and over again that not even the National Guard could stop me from seeing you? That was mostly hyperbole. I was getting so worked up because, in my mind, an obstacle to meeting that was the scale of the National Guard was entirely conceivable, even though I remember only conceiving of obstacles the size of my parents, or worse yet, my own sloth. It was my way of being prepared for anything. It was of the utmost importance to me that I actually get to meet you. But I still carried the burden of feeling like I got away with more than I should with the whole thing being so easy to pull off (minus the several thousand dollars or so my parents spent on the trip).
I left for New York on a weird note. I had literally just wrapped up the semester, which all things considered, went pretty well. Not nearly as much traumatizing action as the last two, but I would not call it uneventful. A few days before taking off, I helped throw my first show. A whole bunch of shenanigans went down, which deserves its own Wattpad, but I digress. Despite all the smooth sailing in my life in and out of school, I was completely sick on the ennui most of us get when you're leaving home for it: the feeling you get staring out of the window on long car trips, with the openness of the space between towns being the most total example of what it is to be between things. At this point in my life, I overwhelmingly feel between things. I really got to sit with that on the plane ride here. Maybe it was the steady pounding of coffee, which I maintained to avoid the withdrawal I felt the last time the M--------s went to the Big Apple, but there was a fair amount of worry and grief in my stomach about this and that: school, you-know-who, the woefully uncertain near future, and most relevant to you reading this now, the plan to meet up with you. Even as I and the rest of my family bit down into the city in 12-hour long daily walks, throughout it, which gave me plenty to distract myself with, that worry remained constant. I didn't know what was going to happen. The days leading up to meeting you put my 21-year-old ass into a 12-year-old headspace. I was genuinely fucking terrified to ask my parents to meet up with you. I had it in my head that I had to risk suffering the humiliation of being denied taking my family along to meet someone who is effectively a stranger from the Internet. Now, I know what you're thinking: "I'm not a stranger! Your mom literally follows me on Facebook!" I know that. But at the time, the math I was expecting to have to beat to was: Internet Person = Stranger. Given the robustness of that equation to who I assumed would be understandably concerned and firmly cautious parents, I wasn't sure if the Braveheart speech I planned to give them would win them over, and if it didn't, I'd look stupid. In this event, I'd look more naive than stupid, but 'naive' doesn't quite describe how stupid feels. And I know I would feel stupid, assuming this didn't work out. But my parents didn't really give a shit. I mean, of course, they gave a shit. They were excited for me to meet you. They know I have talked to you forever. But I wasn't hit with anything even remotely resembling a safety screening until after the fact, which shocked me, despite the fact I'm an adult who my parents trust. This is something I seem to frequently completely forget. I told my dad somewhere outside of a Target in Lower Manhattan that my M.O. here was to work with whatever concerns he or my mom had, which I was trying to anticipate in prefacing this whole thing as being "Meeting with a stranger on the internet". He very much appreciated that, being the only one in my family seemingly more anxious than I was. Looking back, this all seems like a strange exercise for a person who hasn't quite grown up yet. Luckily, it didn't drag on.
