Mother's Day Recap 2013

nov. 18, 2007. in one of the first anthropologie items i ever bought. you can't see it in this picture, but there were tulips growing on my boobs! ha i loved that cardigan. 

The day before Mother's Day, Rob and I went on a date. We decided to go to Chelsea Market for dinner, but first I wanted to stop by Anthropologie. Just to peek in for a minute to get a new dress for Mother's Day. He found a giant flowery couch to sit on while I shopped. I didn't find anything on the first floor, so I walked down stairs to their basement level.

I took my time looking through the racks of clothes. I asked the salesgirl when they closed. I had an hour. I tried on a few dresses, looked through a few books, and checked to see if they had my size in sweaters I really didn't like. Nothing stood out to me in the entire store besides the blue dress I was holding. Everything else looked gaudy. The overly embellished sweaters. The patchwork chairs. The over sized necklaces. Ruffles in odd places. The kind of wallpaper I loved and bought 3 years ago. 

Then a I started listening to a song they had playing in the background. The chorus had something about moms. Mine died in 2000 when I was 18 years old (i try not to bring this up in every single conversation ha). The singer sounded like Jack Johnson, so mellow and sad. I looked around the store and remembered that when I was 18 years old, these were exactly the clothes I thought were so fabulously feminine and so me. I still remember the day my dad tossed an Anthropologie catalog at me and said, "Here, this looks like you." To my teenage self, I took it as a massive compliment. I was yearning to have the same style as women in the catalog and I was thrilled that someone noticed. I had yet to purchase anything from the store, but I held onto the catalogs for inspiration. This went on even into my 20's when I could finally afford to splurge on a few things.

But now as I was standing next to a belted zebra print dress and that same damn guy was singing about his mom, I started to cry. I realized there's almost nothing the same about me when my mother was alive. I've somewhat abandoned or outgrown that person. While there's still parts about me that are the same--my love for writing, my appetite for food, my messy bedroom, there's something sad knowing she never got to see me evolve. Not just in my ridiculous fashion choices, but in becoming an adult. I'm sure she would have been different over these last 13 years, too. I would have loved to see her retire, become a social media guru, and turn into a grandma. It always comes down to that for me. She never missed out on anything. She was always present. It's so annoying she didn't get to live a few more decades.  

Finally the song ended before anyone noticed me crying. I checked my phone to see what time it was, which led to me checking my Instagram. And with tears in my still in eyes, the first picture to show up was  Rob with this caption: Been sitting on this couch for the last hour. Sharon said she was going to try something on and never came back. If you see my wife please tell her I am still waiting for her on that couch in Anthropologie.

And completely by accident, he got me out of my funk. I walked back upstairs, bought the blue dress, and we went out for dinner. I didn't mention my meltdown immediately, but I did put in a request for more self portraits from him in the future. There's nothing like an awful selfie to make it all better.