"No, I don't mind at all, Mom. It will be fun. Plus, I am going to have so much fun helping you shop for all your new stuff!" I said.
She replied, "Ok honey. So my flight is coming at 9am on Monday."
"Yes, I remember. Claudia and I will be there to get you."
After a few more details, we ended our conversation. I was so excited to spend a few weeks with my mom and my best friend, Claudia. My relationship with my mom has really blossomed over the years and she's no longer the overbearing and overprotective mom that I came to resent. Now she respects me as a woman and an adult and since we've been in such a good place for the last few years, I have been very eager to spend more time with her but that's not an easy thing to do since she lives thousand of miles away in Stoneybrook, Connecticut.
The good news is that my mom is moving to a town called Henderson, Nevada, which is about a 20 minute drive from the Las Vegas strip. I live in Los Angeles so now she'll be either an hour plane ride away or a 5 hour drive away. Either way is much better than our current situation. Most people would think it's strange that I would be excited to help my mom move but since she's moving across the country, she sold almost all of the furniture in her house and her car too. THAT means that I have to help her find a new car and new furniture and decorate her new house.
Now, I've only seen pictures of the new place but it's really nice. It's SOO different from her place in Stoneybrook. That was a much older home, with bricks, dark wood and very much East Coast style of architecture. This new place was only built a few years ago and it's a pretty spacious 2 bedroom white stucco home, with a red tile roof and since it's so hot there, she can't even have grass in the front so there's rocks in place of a lawn and desert succulent plants instead of trees. The inside is all white and there's no carpet, except in the bedrooms and most of the house has white tile floors. I'm assuming to keep the place cooler. It's in a cute retirement neighborhood so she'll be with people her own age and I'm sure she'll make a lot of new friends. There is even a community center for all the residents of the neighborhood where they can take craft classes, exercise classes, and there's this huge pool there too. I'm a bit jealous, frankly but my mom has earned it. She worked her butt off at Bellaire's Department Store for over 10 years but unfortunately, she got laid off recently. She's only 60 so she isn't able to "officially" retire just yet but living in Nevada is way cheaper, and she'll be able to get by with a part-time job and the extra money from the sale of her old house in Stoneybrook should keep her afloat until she turns 65 and then she can collect her social security. She seems really excited about it and I really am happy for her.
Whoa, I'm probably not making much sense at all and getting a little ahead of myself, aren't I? Let me go back aways..