Sunday, June 26th, 2005

Waking up from a nap had never been something I'd done well. Even as a child, when napping was a regular occurrence, I was still a mess. Hair all over the place, glazed eyes, imprints of my sleeve on the side of my face - that was how I got it done and it wasn't pretty. It was even less pretty today, since I was about 4 days behind on sleep and had just spent the last five hours passed out in an almost impossible position against the window of an airplane. It also didn't help that I had failed to set my alarm last night which meant I overslept and had to skip showering and brushing my teeth in order to actually make it to the airport before my flight left this morning. I'm sure my breath was at least partially responsible for why the woman in the seat next to me was frantic about getting out of our row and off the plane as quickly as possible.

I was still deep in my haze, but because I'd spent the last four years taking regular cross country flights back and forth from my parents in Connecticut to college in California, I was able to go mindlessly through the motions of collecting myself, my items in the seatback pocket in front of me, and my carry on bag above before I exited the plane. It was only as I grumbled to myself about the abnormal bulk of my shoulder bag that I realized this was the last time I would be making this journey for the foreseeable future; I had just graduated.

Well, "just" was a bit relative in this case. I had really "just" flown back home after a week in Mexico with a bunch of college friends, but right before that we had all graduated. Our little spring break-like getaway had seemed brilliant when we booked it three months ago but right now I would probably give it all back to find myself comfortably asleep in bed instead.

However, since I didn't have a job lined up at this point, I reminded myself I had at least a week to catch up on sleep before my parents started waking me up at 7am to help me devote more time to my job search. A few weeks earlier the law firm that I had interned at the summer before had called to let me know they were re-structuring the New York office, and that the group I had received a job offer from was getting moved to the Houston office and was not taking any entry level staff. This bothered me less than it probably should, but I hadn't been totally sold on the life and times of a paralegal so in some way it seemed more like fate lending me a hand than anything else. Fortunately I had not rented an apartment yet, so I wasn't on the hook for that payment, though I knew that living at home in Milford, Connecticut wasn't going to come without a cost. My family and I had a great relationship, it had just been a long four years since we had all lived under the same roof.

I was perfectly happy zoning out while waiting for my bags at carousel number 4, but I tried to liven myself up a bit as I went through customs. The last thing I was in the mood for was to set off some red flag with the agent and then spend the next 30 minutes watching them unpack and repack all of the stuff I'd dragged across the country with me. I'd donated most of my furniture and old clothes while still in California and luckily my parents could take a few extra suitcases back home with them when they left after graduation, but I still had a lot of little things I couldn't part with packed away in my carry on and checked bags.

"Good afternoon!", I said to the agent as I placed my passport and customs form on the counter in front of me. I really dug deep to throw on some extra zest and earn my exclamation point.

He looked up. "Good evening", he said back.

Damn. What time was it? Did I really just mess that up? "Right", I said. "I guess it is that late here. Still afternoon back in Mexico though." I smiled, but he didn't even want to notice as he had already started to review my paperwork. I was hoping that I was just a relatively uninteresting passenger rather than his next victim. He looked down at my bags, "All that for a week in Mexico?"

"Well, I graduated college right before that, so I had some extra stuff with me."

"And where did you go to college?"

"Stanford." I still had problems saying it without sounding a little awkward. To me it just sounded like "Smart School."

"You brought all that from Connecticut to Mexico and now back to New York?"

Oh boy. I had forgotten about this problem on the East Coast. Stanford was not processed as one of the country's most prostigeous universities located 30 miles south of San Francisco - it was processed as Stamford, a smallish city in Western Connecticut.

"No, sorry... STANford. In California. I went from there to Mexico, and now I'm coming back to the East coast."

"Ok, gotcha. Sorry about that - thought you said Stamford. Stanford... got it. They make the Sweet 16 every couple years right?"

"Yes, they uh - its a pretty good sports program". I didn't have the guts to tell him that Stanford athletes did much more than that - the school consistently was voted as having the best athletic program in the country. But sports like volleyball, water polo, and maybe even soccer didn't seem to be on this guy's radar.

"Ok, well, you're all set so congrats on graduating from Stanford in California, Catherine. Hope you had fun out there for college. Now... welcome back to New York."

He handed me back my forms just before shouting "Neeeeeext" right my in my face. The eager couple behind me with a cart of luggage then shoved me and my bags out of the way to get to the agent. Welcome back to New York, indeed.

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I put my head down as I walked the gauntlet of cabbies, car service drivers, and excited friends and family members eagerly awaiting a familiar face among the latest arrivals to New York. Only when I heard someone screaming "AUDREY!" did I realize that my mom and little sister were in the mix.

"Mom? Hi! What are you doing here? I thought I was going to take the train out and call you guys on the way?"

"Sweat pea, hiiiiiii!" She went in for the big hug. "We just called your name probably 5 times and you walked right by. You a little sleepy?"

"I am. I slept most of the flight, but I didn't sleep for most of the week in Mexico." I had a pretty open relationship with my parents. Not open enough for talk of - say - body shots, but relatively transparent.

"Wait, so why are you guys here? And hi Izzie Bellie!" I reached down to pick up my 6 year old sister, Isabelle. Ooh, she was heavy. "Wow, someone's gotten bigger since Christmas - how old are you now 20?" Isabelle gave me a "nooooo" and giggled, she spent so much time around adults she was ready to be 20 though. Sometimes she dressed better than I did, though that was more my mother's doing I suppose. My parents had had me in their mid twenties, my brother Henry a few years after that, and then twelve years laters they had what they jokingly referred to as "the why not?" She was absolutely adorbale; her biggest flaw in my eyes being that she pushed back the use of swear words in the house another ten years.

"I left you a few messages on your cell - did you not get them?"

I went with "No" rather than "Well mom, my phone is dead because I forgot to charge it after I stayed out until 5am and passed out in my bathing suit". It seemed like the prudent choice.

"Well, we wanted to see Henry's apartment for the summer, so we drove into the city and then from there figured we might as well come out here and get you on the ride home. Dad's out circling, the saint. Traffic has been awful today."

"Mommy, Audrey's bags are HUGE. I can fit inside them. Are you going to take me in your bag for your next trip to California, Audrey?" Isabelle smiled and unzipped my duffle bag and stuck her arm in to show she could fit.

"Guess what, Izz, I graduated so I'm done with school. I'm not going back to California for a while." Maybe it was the lack of sleep but I couldn't help myself from tearing up a little as I said this. Which must have set off my mom's momma bird signal because she gave me one of her looks that said, "Aww, honey - don't be sad". And then she immediately picked up my heaviest bag, grabbed my sister's hand and said, "let's go find your father."

-----

Listening to my parents give each other the play by play of what had happened during their 20 minutes apart at the airport was almost therapeutic. They were such charming dorks - sociable yet intellectual at the same time. My dad was a family practitioner focused on the health, wealth, and wellbeing of everyone around him (this included random strangers who he was happy to advise on a whim), and my mom was a part time photography instructor at Yale. Their idea of a perfect day was a morning nature hike heavy on the photo ops, an afternoon tearing into a crossword puzzle or a good book while lying in the hammock in the backyard, and a big vino-heavy dinner with their children or friends. I'd grown up pretending I was too cool for these activities but the at that point the truth was that I was excited to re-engage in all of them.

"So, Ms. Graduate..." my dad began as he looked at me in the rear view mirror. He didn't get past this though because my mom started to hum pomp and circumstance which he couldn't resist joining in on as well.

"Yes, yes, yes... that's me. Thank you, thank you... I'd like to the Academy... and my dear parents for their support and financial backing... and my little sister, Isabelle for her macaroni art that got me through those first few challenging years..." my Academy Awards speech was cut off at this point as my parents sent each other into a loud laughter spell.

"Ohh, Aud - you are something." my dad began. "But really... tell us... how was Mexico? Were you guys frequenting Senor Worms or whatever that place is called?"

"It's Senor Frogs and... I wouldn't say we frequented it. We had to check it out, but dad, you'd be proud of us - we only spent 3 days in Cancun and then we rented cars and drove around other areas and checked out the ruins. There are some incredible places down there..."

"Good for you. I figured it was going to be all tequila, all the time. Your mother and I went down there probably 15 years ago - you probably don't even remember. You and Henry went to Gamma's and we ran away for a long weekend. I'm sure a lot has changed though - we drove to some ruins on the beach and they were all dirt roads."

"Yeah, definitely different. I think it was a four lane highway when we drove it... guess that's progress huh? Anyway, it was great. I mean, I'm exhausted from all the fuss at graduation and then all the celebrating we did in Mexico, but at the same time, who knows when we will all be able to take a vacation together again? Sarah, Emily, and Lily are in San Francisco, Jackie is at med school in Pennslyvania, Laura at law school in Chicago, and Katherine in DC - it's so weird. The magnificient seven... torn apart!"

My parents called my closest friends from college and me "the magnificient seven". I'd invited them all to join my parents and me at my grandparents' house on Cape Cod for a week the summer after junior year and it had left an indelible mark. Nothing like a gaggle of new 21 year olds at the beach to entertain parents.

"Well, honey, once you get a job the nice thing is you can take little weekend getaways to visit all of them..." my dad replied. The job talk - here we go...

"Dad, can I have a week to deal with myself before we get into the job talks? It's not my fault that the firm restructured. Plus, this way I can spend some time thinking about what I really want to do. And for the record, other members of the magnificent seven are unemployed. It's not like I'm the ONLY one..."

"Aud, sorry. I really didn't mean to crack down on you. I just meant once you are making some money, you can travel and in that case distance with friends isn't so bad. I promise, you've got a week of no pressure from me." He looked at me in the rear view mirror again and winked.

I gave him five days. If that. My dad was a work horse. If I wasn't working for someone else, he'd be sure that I was at least working for him.

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The traffic on the Whitestone Bridge and I-95 through Connecticut wasn't bad at all. I guess most people were going from the beach to the city rather than the reverse. We made it home in about an hour and a half, though it felt like far less for me given that I passed out about half way through the ride.

??Henry at house? I banker? Hot car, etc???