The clouds looked peaceful out the window, like pillows in a sea of light blue sky. I couldn't look away from the window at the beauty that was so close to me but out of reach. I let my forehead hit the glass and let out a sigh. My body was starting to cramp up in the seat that I had been confined in for a couple hours. And unfortunately I still had quite a few hours to go.
I looked over to my right to see my mom, her seat slightly more reclined than mine. Her eyes were shut and her chest was rising and falling as she slept. My mom could always fall asleep on airplanes easily whereas I could not. And it didn't help that I was already nervous about where we were heading.
I leaned my head back against the headrest, thankful I was at least sitting by the window. It made me feel less trapped in, funny enough. Just on the other side of this window, was the whole world, open to me, space to let me breathe. It made me feel more at ease. The man on the other side of my mom had been reading the same magazine for hours on end, not once watching the little TV that was attached to each seat. I had already watched a couple movies. The man was dressed in fairly nice clothes, probably a business man of some sort. Why was he wearing those clothes on a flight from LA to London? My yoga pants and UCLA sweatshirt was as nice as I was going to look, and that was a stretch.
I turned my attention back to the view from the window. Below the clouds were thousands of houses full of thousands of families. Below the clouds, somewhere, was my now empty house. Full of bad memories and broken promises. Full of separation and the eventual divorce. I would gladly run away from that house. I could feel my stomach turn and my breathing quicken just at the thought of it.
A sound next to me made me turn to see my mom shift in her seat, but her eyes didn't open. She looked calm and at peace, a look I rarely saw from her. She looked strong at the same time, a look that usually I had to fake but wore often. She needed to leave that house more than I did. She needed strength and I was the one to give it to her. No matter how hard I had to pretend.
The first time I saw her strength return was when she got the call. Her boss at the catering company had recommended her for this job and after his glowing recommendation, she got an email about scheduling an interview. A month after that, she got the call that she received the job. We hopped on a plan two weeks later. This plane.
It didn't really hit me till today how quickly it all went. I barely had time to tell my advisor at UCLA that I wouldn't be coming back for the next school year so that I could remain with my mom. I was her support system and I wasn't going to leave her. Luckily, the divorce happened after my freshman year ended so I was able to be home and pick up the pieces.
My mom shifted again. This might be the longest I've ever seen her sleep in a while. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a bun, her blue eyes covered by her eyelids. She definitely passed down the baby blues and her light freckles down to me, but where her hair was blonde, mind was red.
The hours we had left on this plane made me aware of how antsy I was becoming. I wanted to get up and move, but that would mean disrupting my mom and squeezing past the man on the other side of her. The only way I could get through this flight would be by sleeping or watching another movie. I grabbed my headphones and tried to find something worthy of watching. A picture of Ryan Gosling came up on my screen (thank you god) and clicked on Crazy, Stupid Love. I made it about 40 minutes in before my eyelids started to grow heavy, slowly closing against my will.
