Jessica Puente

I was running at the park when it happened. Wanting to change up the scenery, I headed to the park for a long run as punishment for the cookie and red, velvet cake I had this week. I ended up going around the whole park because I can’t read signs and am easily distracted by birds. So much so that I just end up following them and thus spent two hours walking/running/crawling in tunnels around the park.

Anyway, my mother called. I hit ignore immediately. Can’t have her messing up my jams. I need music to stay in the zone sometimes when I workout because I’m not a freak that loves to run for hours. But she called again. As a general rule, if someone calls me three times in a row, I answer. Regardless of what I am doing. It’s clearly a life or death situation in my book.

“Hey…[long pause.]”

yea…

“We’re leaving in a bit.”

okay?…

“To Victoria. To pick up your car.”

Oh, okay. I’m running. Call you later. [PANIC]

Okay, normally I would panic. But it’s been a pretty boring week so I had done a lot of cleaning already and I actually kinda missed my parents.

I figured I had a couple of hours so I took some photos at the park before heading back.

Clearly, the next stop was at the store for some alcohol and a movie because we tend to sit around awkwardly and I wanted to avoid that since my teenage cousin was coming along for the ride too, bless her soul.

Once my mother called me to let me know they were in town, I just started pacing. The wireless went out again at that moment so I couldn’t distract myself. I was so excited to see them even if it was only going to be for a couple of hours. I paced some more and told Orbison to calm down because he was making me nervous. He looked at me from the couch where he was trying to sleep and gave me  a look that said, “Pull yourself together. And bring me a taco.” I thought about how different this was compared to a year ago. A year ago, I would probably still be running around, hiding random things I thought they would judge me for and texting my bff about what an inconvenience this was. Just then Orbison leaped toward the door.

They brought me chicken nuggets and the food tasted like love.

Once upon a time my mother visited me and ripped the fan chain out in a hulk-like fashion. Maintenance took a look and said they would replace it. That was several weeks ago. My dad took a look at it as soon as he walked in and deemed it unfix-able as well. It always touches my heart how he always checks the apartment looking for things that might need fixing. I remember he got upset when I was younger because I rearranged my room while he was at work. He didn’t care that I had moved things, he was just sad I didn’t need his help. Yea, that’s the kind of dad I have.

My dad went to bed before the movie was over so my mom and I did what we do best. Stayed up and gossiped about random family members/people we work with/anyone who we happened to see that day. It was great.

It blows my mind that there was a time I didn’t know how to talk or be around these people. They’re actually pretty cool.