I Missed You

I Missed You

         The happiest moment of my entire life, has to be the day I met my mother. Your probably thinking, “Met your mother? Doesn’t this happen at birth?” And your right. It certainly does happen at birth. But it happened again on June 1st, 2007.
         Airplane rides are never usually my thing. I can’t stand landing and I despise taking off. The butterflies in my stomach were so severe I felt as if I was going to get sick before the plane even left the ground. Before I knew it though we were in the midst of the clouds. The lady sitting next to me seemed extremely sad, and being the person that I am, I asked her name. She then told me her life story as if I was her new best friend. She told me how she came to Alaska to wish her daughter farewell as she went off to her freshman year of college. She told me how she could tell I disliked taking off from the terminal, and how if I drank water the butterflies would settle down, and I’d be able to relax. She asked what I was doing riding the plane alone, and I told her my story, as if I were her new best friend. I told her how I’d been living with my dad the previous 12 years of my life. I told her how my mom recently moved to Fairbanks, giving me the option to see her. I told her how I was nervous, yet overly excited at the same time. And all she could do was smile.
         I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was wearing blue jeans, a bright pink shirt, my worn out sketchers from the Christmas of 06’, and was carrying a pink and black backpack. The plane ride had me exhausted, even though it was only an hour and forty-five minutes. I’m not sure if it was exhaustion from being nervous? Or if I was just tired from getting no sleep the night before. The airport was small, but it seemed full of so many jet-lagged, bad-breath, and wrinkled clothes people. Hustling and bustling about to get to their gate. I was lost, unsure of which direction I was supposed to be walking. I glanced around, looking for signs that read something along the lines of “exit” or maybe even “baggage claim?” No luck. So I just kept moving forward.
         Bright orange lights highlighted “B-A-G-G-A-G-E-C-L-A-I-M”. Finally. Ahead of me were 4 tall glass windows, and then there were stairs leading to the lower level of the terminal. I turned the corner to walk down the stairs, and there she was. I stopped, my stomach dropped, butterflies became a thing of the past. Welcome to my tummy hummingbirds. She was crying, and I felt tears come out the corner of my eyes. I don’t normally cry, but I defiantly started to. I didn’t want to keep walking towards her, and I didn’t have to, because she was walking towards me. The feeling I felt when I was in her arms, was unexplainable. It seemed like everything from my past disappeared and everything in store for my future lightened up. It was like I was finally truly happy. I was finally complete. Something I waited for my whole life was finally right in front of me. I looked like her, walked like her, talked like her. Everything. We had the same color of eyes, and the same color of hair. I wasn’t sure how we would adjust to each other. I wasn’t sure how we would get along. I wasn’t sure how we would bond. I wasn’t sure whether she’d like me or not. I wasn’t sure about anything, except the feeling that slowly took over my body. The feeling of love, and happiness. The feeling of closure. I loved every single second that I spent in her arms. Out of all the things I was uncertain about, there’s one thing that reassured me it was going to be okay, one thing that topped it all off . . . . . .
As she was hugging me, she whispered “I missed you.”