Here I am, the morning of the day before tomorrow, when I go home. Waking up in the hotel by a marketing call from France, which for some reason I answer. Hello? Allo? No one responds to either, and I realise that the background noise is from a call center, so I hang up. Awake, kind of, I get myself up as I see that there is still five minutes left for breakfast, so I try to make it at least once during my stay. I go downstairs to the American breakfast to discover that nothing is fresh, nothing is natural, from coffee creamer to syrup, everything has been put into single serving disposable containers, plastic which likely seeps into the food products. Nothing is natural, the real thing, but instead a simulacrum, what we thing that juice or jam or syrup should be like, made from chemical counterparts and flavour enhancers. But I sit, and watch a bit of Kelly and Ryan, as its’s on, and think about what they are really like, if they really like each other, as Ryan Seacrest stretches himself, in a forced lounging position across his director’s chair, wearing a rust coloured turtleneck and a grey blazer, a nod to the chicness of Regis before him. You sir, are no Regis Philbin, a man that made bitchy banter light even when he and Kathy were at their most venomous, it seemed fun. These two are a bit sad and tired, like me, and don’t seem to be having very much fun even though it’s Friday.

In the breakfast room the ladies seem to know each other already, as one grown daughter and mother pair chat with the woman working. She is happy to be having a date night tomorrow with her husband, the first in three years. I quickly learn her whole story, she was married as a teenager and had her first child before twenty. Breastfed her last for two years, so had no date night before, but now it’s time. At some point, I tell her that I too have twins and we chat a bit. I tell her that Mom has passed and we talk about cancer and death. She lost a cousin recently, who was more like her sister, they would FaceTime at the end of her shift, when she was cleaning up from breakfast. She died from cancer at twenty six and left two young children and her husband behind. So suddenly, and so young. She tells me to let my mother be present, to speak with her, to ask for signs and be open to receiving them. Yes, I agree, and I contemplate how differently I might have reacted to her saying this if I were who I was even a month ago, but I’ve changed now. Absolutely, I already have, I think. I already am.

Now I sit back on my bed, contemplating waking up, sobering up. Feeling the soft cloud lift from me and feel the damper of reality set in. Calls to make, things to do. Make a list and try not to panic. Move slowly but deliberately, when all I want to do is languish in the hotel bed for the entire day, entire week. But there are things to be done, dependencies to take care of now, so that this chapter can be closed properly. Prepare for the future, which feels so foreign to me, so strange that it has already arrived. With inheritance comes responsibility, as well as a chance to rewrite the story, deciding what to take along and what to lead behind. Today I must stay sober, and guide things without pause, or too many, at least. It’s hard to face the emotions without a cushion, as they can rise up at any moment, unanticipated, and smack you with grief, or absence. It is tricky to convince yourself to be ready, to let them flow or tumble in without resistance.

So now I will try to make my list, and get through it.