Now and again she finds herself spinning. Alone. Hiding, with smiles and laughter. Soaking up Yali red wine from Chile. She attempted to make squAsh mac in cheese but failed dreadfully. Think salty pasta with carmelized onions.

She binges on anything laugh worthy from the library. She starts with My Big Fat Greek Wedding and then goes on to Archer.
All according to plan.
It took her back to Star Wars.
When Alec Guinness does his jedi mind trick on the storm troopers, when their asking after Luke. She does that every day. She smiles while she teaches. Laughs at dumb jokes and thinks to herself. These aren’t the droids she’s looking for.

She has dreadful insomnia.
She worries.
She’s always has done so since she was in her twenties. She used eat boboli pizzas with pesto, broccoli, mozzarella and three other cheeses on it.

She used to date a lot, have lots of sex, love herself more. Feel wanted.
Sexy.

Now she just feels old. Alone.

She worries about losing loved ones.
Her lover not wanting her.
Her mom slipping. Anywhere.
Her students failing.
Her friends living abroad in other countries.
But
The little things …bring joy.
Emails from friends across the pond.
Being with family.
Baking.
Cooking magazines.
Cinnamon bears. Vanilla candles.
Sex

These aren’t the droids she’s looking for.

I was adopted at three months old in November. It actually says in my baby book that, I am “in honor of the rosebud”. Whatever that means? But we know it means, I am special, unique, meant for great things. To serve others blah blah blah.

I am the youngest of four children. All of my siblings are related by blood but me.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been close to my grandparents. My Nana and Bampy on my fathers side. More so when I turned nineteen and lived with them for a summer before starting college at a fashion school in Los Angeles.

My grandparents were old school. What I mean by that is…my Nana believed everything she read in the National Enquirer. She believed in Murder she Wrote, Jeopardy, Quincy MD and dinner at four pm with a banana cream pie.

They loved happy hour and when my cousin B would come over. B would raise her glass and say, “this glass won’t fill itself”.

I , however wasn’t allowed to drink until I turned twenty one. My Bampy carded me and looked at my driver’s license for ten minutes to make sure it wasn’t fake. They’d drink vodka cranberries and listen to Harry Belafonte records. 18 years later she left me.

I lost my Nana in her eighties. All I remember was she was in the ICU hooked up to every machine and we had to let her go.

I had to call all of my siblings and remind them to call their grandfather because they didn’t do it on their own. I called each one of them on the landline in their bedroom with two light blue covered twin beds gazing at me like I was in Lucy and Desi Arnez bedroom. It was rough.

I carried the bag with my father.

A year later after repeated weekend visits to my Bampy to make sure he knew he was loved. He passed away, unexpectedly.  His pacemaker went out while in the hospital.

Before he left me,  we passed that year while playing trivia and pool at his club house.No siblings came to the hospital when I collected his things. Or the house to help me go through their estate.

As my parents get older. A brother looks after an aging father. I spend my Saturday’s making a woman laugh, who forgets the days, months, what she ate and where she left her phone for the umpteenth time.

The best medicine is laughter, love, patience, and sadly, self care is put to the side.

I only have one mother.
One love.
So carrying the bag it is.