Postcards From Far Away {Peterick}

Permanent Jet Lag

"Peter, honey. You need to wake up." Mom shook me violently out of my still, empty daydream. "C'mon. We've gotta board before daylight."

She frantically grabbed her purse and suitcase and started speed walking toward the white gate. Sighing, I gripped on to my old, worn suitcase and made an attempt to catch up to her. I checked the time on my phone. 5:58. We had two minutes to make it to the gate, which almost seemed impossible, depending on how crowded this wing of the airport was. I had no idea where we were going this time. Maybe Hawaii. Maybe not even out of state. Maybe Mom scraped up enough change from tips to afford this. She'd been a waitress at a small local diner nearby. Didn't pay much, but it got us through for the three months we'd lived here.

When my efforts to catch up with Mom suceeded, we were just in time for last minute boarding. The steps up into the plane were very familiar to me. It'd been a while, though; we usually traveled by car. As we made it to our seats, everyone was pretty much ready for take off, every buckle buckled, every baby silenced. I never really got the point of the seatbelts. Even if we did crash, we'd be doomed. It's no help.

A few minutes into takeoff, I noticed my mother was staring at me, a black streak running down her cheek.

"Mom? Are you okay?" She snapped out of her trance and wiped the tear off of her face.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine, Petey. I was just thinking about how much stress moving so often must be putting on you. We're never settled. We don't have a place to call home."

"Yeah. It's fine, Mom. As long as we're safe, it doesn't matter if we move or not. I could care less. It's not like I have friends to leave behind." I smiled.

"Oh, Pete," Mom sighed jokingly. We had a very special bond. I had no idea what I'd ever do without her.

After that, there wasn't much conversation. I slowly began to drift off, thinking about what could possibly lie ahead in our mad lives. Maybe we'd change our names. Who knew? All I knew was that whatever happened, it probably wouldn't last.

---

When I woke up, we were landing. I had no idea where we were. It seemed strangely familiar. Deja Vu? Maybe.

When we exited the plane, I noticed a sign.

Welcome to Chicago, IL Pop. 2,500,000

"Mom?" I asked, still looking at the sign.

"Yeah?" She asked, looking at a small map.

"We live in Chicago?" I asked. This couldn't actually be real.

"Yeah, I thought you deserved it. I know how much you miss this place."

I smiled at grabbed mine and Mom's suitcase. I don't know what the feeling I had was, but I knew it was a feeling that wouldn't go away for a long time. This was a place I often thought of as "home".