"oh, the things people will do for the ones that they love"

yesterday when i got home from a very normal day at school, i put my bags in my room and went to say hi to my mother.

and that's when everything changed.

she told me that jesse, the husband of the little family that lives with us, forgot a very important piece of equipment when he left a few hours earlier for a job he had to do in north carolina. so that meant ruth, his wife, had to drive up there and give it to him. but her and the baby couldnt go alone, so i offered myself up.

ruth got in the shower, and i went to my room and stood there, trying to think of what i could possibly need for this extremely spur-of-the-moment trip for who knows how long to a state many hours away. so i packed the essentials: my hoodie, pants, my toothbrush and cd's.

so we loaded up the baby, his giraffe named sophie, programmed the gps, and then we were off.

we drove past the fields and houses, onto the interstate, and into atlanta. i gave ruth some pep-talks because she was annoyed and really really tired already. they were about how, even though it's annoying because it's almost six and we've only just beginning our journey across two state lines, she loves jesse and we're doing it for him. and that it was an adventure and really, who ever died from a little adventure??

(nevermind)

she made me promise i wouldnt fall asleep and abandon her. i promised i wouldnt leave her, and that i'd go to obnoxious measures to keep her awake. (which was my favorite part)

atlanta -maybe any city, actually- gets really pretty and alive at sunset. golden light streams through the buildings so romantically. i was next to ruth, sitting on my hands, laughing and vibrating with excitement and sunlight and some uncertainty of what was happening.

we drove on for a few miles then we stopped at a publix to get something to eat. while we were walking in, me and ruth started chanting to max: ROOOAD TRIP! ROOOAD TRIP! ROOOAD TRIP! and he screamed out the loudest i've ever heard him scream, in sheer happiness. we laughed hysterically and went in, got food and ate in the car.

then we were back on the road and continued on. as the darkness closed in, so did the feelings of sleep. so we cranked the radio while maxi somehow snoozed like the baby he is. we sang along very roughly to any song that came on, including spanish ones on the mexican station. then ruth made me buy the hunger games on my kindle and read it out loud to her. so i read some of it to her and ate strawberries. i didnt like doing it, but the story was good.

after that, we listened to more music, danced and kept driving. and we played the alphabet game, which ended this morning. (i won.) then somehow jack johnson hopped into the cd player and hypnotized us. we were humming along and then my eyes started to shut. i was about to break my promise to ruthes. so i woke myself up and thank goodness, we were almost there. six hours later.

so then we were both wide awake, though mostly asleep, and we got off the interstate. it was after midnight. we found jesse and his crew in the parking lot of a ralph lauren building. (they have to do their work at night, so that the building is empty) we gave them the thing, whatever it was, and he gave us the key to the hotel.

fast forward- when we got to the room, we were practically in tears with thankfulness when we saw those glorious beds. especially ruth, who was yawning before we even left the neighborhood, hours before.

you know in those dramatic hotel commercials when the person runs up to the bed and jumps on it and lands in slow motion on a big cloud of pure white comforting fluff? that's what i did. i ran to one of the beds, and dove superman style onto the bed and landed in slow motion. i didnt want to move.

then we slept. i'm pretty sure i went to sleep smiling.

and i only woke up twice, i think. once because max was crying, and the other time i woke up because there was someone at the foot of my bed fixing the thermostat on the wall. i opened my eyes and saw the silhouette of a man, lit by the light from the bathroom. i was caught off guard and scared for a second because i'm not used to waking up at 3 a.m., seeing a man standing next to my bed. then i realized it was just jesse and i didnt care anymore. i buried myself again in the white fluffy cloud dream bed and went back to sleep.

then we got up in the morning and went down to eat breakfast. i made myself some coffee and i was very happy.

then me, ruth, and max loaded up the car again, group-hugged with jesse, said goodbye and started our journey back home. we stopped at a mall and shopped for a bit.

the rest of the trip consisted of the following: listening to more music, talking deeply about life, reading "extremely loud and incredibly close" while ruth was on the phone, singning to max, stopping to get coffee, considering getting matching tattoos in the shape of north carolina as a salute to the adventure we just had, (ruth couldnt figure out a good way to explain it to my mom, though, so we decided against it) playing with max's face from the front seat, doing the 'i have to pee harder than i've ever had to in my entire life' dance in our seats, and then driving through that energizing and romantic evening sunlight of atlanta once again.

for the last two miles of our journey we sang the 'max is the cutest baby in the world' song really loud and off-key. nonstop. the whole time. two miles. only stopping to take a breath and swallow.

max was completely emotionless at this point. he didnt care about our song, even though we were insanely enthusiastic. poor kid. he was trapped in a car with his mother and me for about 13 hours. that's exhausting.

it was crazy, overall. but it was very refreshing and entirely fun. our friendship grew and we fell in love with life again.