Hikes and Brunch
"Never underestimate the power within you, because you may be the only person in the entire universe to solve a specific problem." - Gift Gugu Mona
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"I got all this love, nothing to do with it now
When you gonna come and get it? I can't throw it out
I got all this love gathering dust in my house"
"I got all this love, all this love." I hummed to myself as I whisked two eggs in a bowl. Adding flour, sugar, milk, baking powder, a pink of salt, and some oil, I mixed all of the ingredients together.
It was Saturday morning, well 11:30 am but hey, still morning nonetheless. I woke up feeling better than I had in a while. It was the first Saturday in months when Aiden did not wake me up at 7 am to go workout with him. I mean, honestly, who willingly gets up that early when they don't have to!
I continued to hum along to whatever song came next on my Spotify as I flipped the pancakes in the pan. Mom was at work, as per usual, so I had the apartment all to myself.
As I plated the pancakes, I ran through a quick mental checklist of all the homework I had to do this weekend. On the back of my mind were also college applications. Despite the fact that the deadline for regular decision applications was January 1st, I wanted to finish before winter break.
I had major plans with my bed and Netflix during the duration of winter break.
Just then, my phone chimed. Curious to see who it was, I saw it was a text from Ella. Following the whole quick-pay incident, I had decided to save her number to my list of contacts. I had a feeling I would be hearing from her more often, and I wasn't wrong.
Ella: Hi Natalie! Are you busy today?
Natalie: Hey Ella. Not really, what's up?
Figuring she probably wanted me to babysit again, I took a seat at the counter and began dumping syrup over my stack of pancakes. Yum.
Chime!
Ella: Great! I'll pick you up in 30 minutes. Wear something comfortable
Natalie: Okay. Sounds good.
Once I had finished eating, I dumped the dishes in the sink and quickly got changed into a pair of black yoga pants, an oversized tan knitted sweater, and some black Nike trainers. Mother Nature had decided to play a game of guess what the temperature will be today, the entire month of November. Although the weather had begun to chill, today was a surprisingly warm day in the mid sixties.
I decided not to give Ella's out of the blue text too much thought as I kept scrolling through Instagram until she texted me that she was here.
As I opened the passenger side to her black Range Rover, I noticed she was alone.
"Hi!" She chippered as soon as I opened the door. "I'm so glad you were free today! When I asked Aiden if you were doing anything today, he said you would probably be sleeping all day."
"Aiden just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut." I smiled through gritted teeth. "I'll take any reason not to do the mountain of homework I have sitting at my desk right now."
"I thought we'd take advantage of the beautiful weather today and go for a hike. My OB recommended that if I want to have an easy delivery, I should be as active as possible. Like he knows anything about what it's like to have a human come out of your vagina." She huffed.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Ella Taylor for you.
I nervously laughed at her rambling. "So where are the munchkins?"
"Oh, they're with Grace." She said nonchalantly which made me furrow my eyebrows. "She took them for the day so mama could get some alone time. Honestly, I'm booking Jake's vasectomy appointment myself once I see an opening in his schedule."
Okay, now I was confused. "Wait, if the kids are with Mrs. Cooper, what am I doing here?"
"We're having a girls day, silly!" She said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I thought we'd get to know each other better since Aiden is so smitten with you."
"Aiden is not smitten with me," I snorted in reply. "More like, we're amicable towards one another because we're sharing a bunch of classes this year and he was helping me with soccer."
She smirked, "Sure hun, whatever you say."
I just rolled my eyes in response. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"We're going hiking!" She said giddily.
Great. There goes my lazy Saturday. You might have noticed but I absolutely despise exercising. I do it when I have to, but never willing. I guess this served me right for not asking what I was getting myself into. And to think I could have been at home now stuffing my face with whatever snacks I found in the pantry.
Ella and I spent the remainder of the car ride aimlessly chatting about random things. And what I really mean is, she spent pretty much the entire car ride bitching about being pregnant. But even I know better than to interrupt, so I let her go on and nodded and agreed when necessary.
.........
Thirty minutes later, we pulled into a parking lot where a large wooden sign greeted us.
Des Plaines River Trail
I followed Ella out of the parking lot and onto a trail as I took in our surroundings. We were surrounded by trees on either side. A thick layer of dead leaves lined the ground. While many trees stood bare under the November sky, some still had yellow and red leaves hanging on by a thread.
As we began walking the trail, I noticed Ella's appearance had changed since the last time I saw her. The bags under her eyes had become more prominent, her belly had become more swollen, and she was walking slower than before. I would even go as far as to say, she was wobbling from time to time.
"Um.. are you sure we should be out here?" I started out. "I know your doctor told you to be active but this just seems like a lot of exertion."
"Oh don't worry about it." She waved her hand dismissively. "I hiked this trail when I was pregnant with Mia until the day I went into labor."
"Woah." Was all I could muster. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I guess the stigma that all pregnant women just lay in bed and do nothing towards the end of their pregnancy is nothing but a bunch of crap.
"Anyway!" She said glancing between be and the trail ahead. "Tell me what your plans are after high school."
"Ahh." I chuckled nervously. "That's the big question isn't it. I don't really know to be honest. I've thought about law school for a while, but I'm not sure."
And I wasn't sure. I have spent the last 8 years of my life obsessing over school, that I never took the time to find the one thing I was interested in. In the back of my mind I always wanted to be a lawyer because I thought it would be cool to put all the bad guys in jail like they do in Law and Order: SVU, but I know that reality isn't some TV show.
Law school requires an additional three years of school on top of the four years of undergraduate. Not to mention the bar exam. And then what? I get an entry level job as a paralegal and spend the next 10 years of my life slaving away to make partner?
A part of me, the ambitious and over achieving part, was very intrigued by the notion of being a big-shot partner at a law firm. It would mean all of my work had paid off and I could say I had succeeded. However, the other part of me, was absolutely appalled by the notion of wasting all that time only to end up with your name on some random office door.
"Law school huh. That's ambitious." She smiled. "What field of law?"
"Family law." I replied without a beat. Although I wasn't sure about becoming a lawyer, I knew that if I did become one it would be within that field. When my parents divorced, my mom got the crappy end of the divorce settlement. My father basically left her with nothing and never even bothered to pay for child support. She was forced to work two jobs so that she could provide for us which meant I rarely saw her. Once she got the job she is currently in, things got better but I'm convinced that if she had someone better to fight for her, she wouldn't have missed out on so many of my childhood years.
"Interesting." Ella nodded apprehensively as we walked across a wooden bridge. The water underneath shone a dark green under the afternoon sun. Then, Ella stopped and turned towards me as she leaned against the bridge's railing. "Look Natalie, I'll be blunt. I see a lot of myself in you. It's the reason I asked you to meet me today. I used to be you ten years ago, all caught up in my school work and too busy to enjoy my teenage years.
"But my best friend died in a car accident on prom night because some drunk asshole thought it was a good idea to get behind the wheel that night. After her death, I realized just how short life is. You can have the next five, ten, even twenty years of your life planned out, but there's no guarantee you'll be here to see it. And I know that sounds so morbid, and I'm sorry. I know I probably sound like a crazy person considering you and I don't even know each other that well, but I wish someone had given me this speech 10 years ago.
"A day doesn't go by in which I don't miss Anna. I wish I had spent less time with my nose in a book and more time with her because there were so many things we didn't get to do. I missed out on so many experiences and memories because I was too worried about getting a hundred on my math test and acing that essay. And you know what? At the end of the day it doesn't really matter!"
All I could do was stare at her as she poured her heart out to me. I felt a pang in my heart when she mentioned her best friend's death. Call me a softie, but what happened to her friend Anna is horrible. And I can't even imagine what Ella must have gone through. Prom is supposed to be every senior's dream, and that night will forever be plagued as one of the worst nights of her life.
Ella took my silence as a sign to continue. "Sure, I got my Bachelor's degree in Communication Studies from Northwestern and maybe that opened some doors from me when I interviewed for my first job, but the CEO of the company I worked for went to St. John's University in Queens! My boss right out of college was a DePaul University Alumni."
"The point I'm trying to make is that at the end of the day it doesn't matter if you go to an Ivy League school and whether you have the perfect grades, employers value experience more than grades sometimes. Obviously this doesn't mean fail your classes, it just means don't spend so much time caught up in your head. Live your life. you're young; go out and experience new things, fall in love, be reckless."
I was speechless. I mean what do you say to that. her speech goes against all of my beliefs up until this point. After sometime, I lamely reply "I don't know what to say."
Ella burst out laughing at this. " I don't expect you to say anything sweetie. I just wanted to get that off my chest. I saw myself in you from the moment I met you, and I hope that my little rant can make even the slightest difference in your future."
I awkwardly nodded as I continued to stare at her. She must have picked up on my awkwardness because she linked her arm with mine and led us to continue our hike.
From there, our conversation became much lighter. She told me some crazy stories from her freshman year in college. We eventually started talking about her and her husband Jake, and how the two of them met during her senior year when he gave a lecture to her class. He picked on her because she was talking in the middle of class, but after, he offered to take her out for coffee. Ella wouldn't be Ella if she didn't tell him to go to hell first. However, she eventually gave in after the poor guy sent her dozens of roses and stopped by every week after her class to see her. She finally agreed to go to dinner with him after a month of him begging, and the rest is history.
I couldn't help but gush at their story. It certainly wasn't the most romantic story you'll ever hear, but every girl dreams of having a guy like Jake swoon over them like that.
By the time we had reached the end of the trail, all five miles of it I might add, I was exhausted. Ella suggested we grab a late lunch as she drove us to Lucky Platter, a small diner not too far from her parent's house.
She was craving breakfast at three in the afternoon so she ordered French Toast and a breakfast plate with eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. Oh and did I forget to mention the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake she had for desert? I stuck with a Texas burger topped with cheese, bacon, onions, and mayo.
"Oh god." Ella said as she leaned back in the booth we were currently occupying. "I'm stuffed."
I chuckled as I saw she had only eaten only three fourths of what she had ordered. I decided to tease her. "Well, you did kinda order half the menu!"
"Hey!" She said, playfully throwing a rumpled napkin at me as an elderly couple passed by our table eyeing us. "I'm eating for two!"
Holding my hands up in surrender, "I'm only kidding!"
I saw the waiter from the corner of my eye and I motioned for him to get us the check. I was in the process of getting the card out of my wallet when Ella snatched the bill from the waiter's hands. "Don't even think about it." She said narrowing her eyes in slits at me.
"Oh come on!" I began to argue, but I only got so far as she shot me another glare and motioned for me to put my card back. "Paying for lunch is the least I can do."
"Nope." She replied as she took out her platinum American Express card and handed it to the waiter. The poor waiter just gave me an apologetic shrug as he walked away.
Once Ella and I were in the car, I was under the impression she would be taking me home. However, as I watched her make a left towards her parent's house, I gave her a confused look. She must have picked up on what I was trying to say because she gave me a toothy grin and said, "Aiden might have mentioned that you're a really good baker. I was hoping you'd bake me some red velvet cupcakes."
How could I possibly say no to a pregnant woman. I figured it was the least I could do after today.
Truth be told, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her rant in the park, and the more I thought about it the more her words rang true. For as long as I could remember, I had prioritized school and my work over everything else. The countless times I'd turned down plans with Brooke and Caroline because I had a test to study for, or an essay to write. Taking more AP classes than the average student at our school because I wanted as much college credit as possible.
Everything I had done since I entered high school has been carefully calculated and geared towards one thing - college and my career. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like crap for missing out on fun times with my friends, but I had convinced myself that that was the price I had to pay so that I could reap the benefits later in life.
Listening to Ella today talk about her best friend Anna made me reconsider my entire philosophy.
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Do you guys think Natalie is missing out on living her life because she's too focused on school?