HONESTLY

Reflection

For my twenty-first birthday, my parents renovated the farmhouse barn into an apartment and studio for me. With an open-concept, I had my own kitchen, living area, small recording studio, and a loft up above with a bed and bathroom for when I wanted my own space and didn't want to stay in the main farmhouse with my parents.

"Let's go buy some things to brighten up this place," my mom said out of the blue one day while glancing around the empty, freshly-rehabbed barn with rustic hardwood planks on the floor.

Even when my mom was sick to point of exhaustion and wearing a silk scarf to cover her bald head, she was always thinking about me.

"Now?" I questioned.

My mother could barely walk ten feet without stopping and taking a breath.

"Well, it's not going to decorate itself," she said as she walked out the door, almost like she had a new spring in her step.

That day, we shopped and shopped and shopped. My mother seemed genuinely happy, flashing a pure smile my way while watching me choose furnishings for my new studio. Deep down, I had a gut feeling my mom's enthusiasm for creating this space for me on their property was to give me an incentive to stick around and not find my own place. I think my mother knew her fiercely-fought battle was coming to an end, and she was trying to make sure I would be there for my father so he wouldn't be alone.

I hoped my mother knew that I would've never left, even if I didn't have a studio.

I still couldn't believe she had been gone for over a year.

After the funeral, and over the course of months, I wondered if I contributed to her illness. I'm not saying I thought I caused the cancer, but I felt guilty I could've been a main factor in delaying the diagnosis. I remember the crazy rush from when I posted the YouTube videos to Walt calling me up and bringing me to Nashville for an impromptu meet and greet. The whirlwind, which became my life, caused an upheaval of our entire family. As a minor, my parents had to come with me and be by my side through the whole process.

Not too long after meeting Walt, my parents and I had a sit-down and realized I would need to move to Nashville to really have a shot at making this work. Without another thought, our house immediately went on the market and the search for another forever home began. My parents decided to split their time, one would be with me, and one would stay back wrapping up our, "old life." My mother quit her job as an insurance agent and took on the duty of traveling with me. During that time, we searched for our perfect home, which the farmhouse ultimately became.

When we were leaving North Carolina on that last day, my mom was frantic at making sure we had all the boxes we needed before we set out on the, "adventure of our lives," as she liked to say.

"I'm going to go drop Jenna's present off at the door, " she said in a hurry, "I just saw them pull out of the driveway." 

Like the long friendship Nate and I had, so did our mothers. My mom grew very close to Jenna, Nate's five-year-old sister,  during her mom's bout with postpartum. She practically was Jenna's second mom, and that bond didn't just disappear even when her friendship with Lynn went cold. Our moms grew distant right after Nate and I were no longer attached at the hip.

One of my mistakes, of many, was to trust Nate's promise that things would not change between us.

I felt badly when I saw my mom basically drop the gift bag at the front step and quickly walk back over to our side of the road, hoping Lynn didn't forget something and swing back home to see her in her yard. That would've been an awkward moment.

"It is, what it is," my mom said anytime the subject of Nate's family would come up.

When my mom returned from dropping the gift off, I met up with her at the end of our driveway, while trying to juggle quite a bit of mail my dad failed to get while my mom and I were away for a couple of days.