Light

Still letting in the light, three years later.

I was siting on a plane with a book in my lap that I knew I wouldn’t get to read, looking at the new diamond ring on my right hand I’d recently had made to kind of take the place of the jewels I’d no longer wear on my left. This one was just for me. There were eleven pieces of luggage in total I’d brought on to the plane; Several suitcases were underneath us somewhere in storage, a few were open under the seats, stuffies and snacks spilling out of them, and more even were over our heads. And then there was my traveling companion, my two-year-old, sitting beside me.

Often a master of logistics, I planned some of this out carefully: an airbnb was booked. A preschool was registered for and a start date confirmed for the following week. A chauffeured car would pick us up when we landed, not because I was apt to ride around in chauffeured cars but because how else was I to transport a two-year-old and eleven pieces of luggage, including a large and heavy car seat, from baggage claim and to an airbnb all on my own? Like, actually picture it. I googled it: 3-7 bags fit on a luggage cart. You can’t do this with an Uber. With a car and a driver, I could at least get the kid into the car, in her seat, and then run back and forth with the bags until they were all loaded up.

And that’s what we did.

I got my daughter and her car seat and the book I hadn’t opened and all our belongings loaded into the car and took a very big, very deep breath as our driver took 205 South toward our Airbnb. Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to the quadruplex and I got the key out of the box for the unit with the yellow door that would be our first place to land, headquarters for operation New Beginnings, and then unloaded all the things and my daughter, kissing her head a dozen times and telling her “We made it, babe. We made it,” before collapsing on to the couch and ordering us a Pad Thai delivery to share for dinner.

We’d made it.

And it was still just the beginning.