18 and Gone



April 17th, 1991



When I was small, my mother handed me the blueprint for the life that would please her of me. If I was proper, married, stiff, and orderly, she’d be pleased with my existence. What I saw her asking me to do was to be saccharine. Smile, even if you feel the agony of loneliness. She knew this dreams didn’t correlate with mine, and yet she still forced them upon me.



However, I’m turning 18 soon and I don’t want to go to college. I need to snip the strings she uses to control me like a puppet. I don’t see accounting or marriage ahead of me; I see a path straight to San Francisco. Mother doesn’t realize that I despise the Illinois life she’s building around me. Marco, the son of the mayor she hopes to see me marry, is a dream of hers that will go to dust. I want to go to California and live by the ocean and become a nature photographer. Here, we have mayor’s sons whose most interesting pastimes include hoarding the attention of a girl whose mother wants him to marry. We have tiny towns with dull schedules day in and day out. I’ve never seen the ocean, and California is a state decorated with the Pacific Ocean. Also, mother wants me to become an accountant. I’d rather pluck out each of the hairs on my head one by one than live a life succumbing to that career.



When I was 13, Mother took me to Chicago. We were dropping off my father for his trip to Washington. He was flying there to train to become a Navy Seal. I felt so abandoned that he was leaving me with my mother, but I also felt so irrevocably proud of him. He was so brave to leave us and serve the country. As I waved to him, I can still remember how his pine green eyes shone at me, with a new found mission in life.



Either that, or he was ecstatic to get away from my mother.



Whatever it was, it was the last time we ever saw him. Now, I don’t want to delve into that sad story, so we’ll just say he died heroically and I was left with my strict Mother. However, while we were in Chicago, I developed a passion for the city. I loved the constant sea of people and the large buildings. The only thing I wanted more than that was the ocean; San Francisco was a combination of the two.



So officially at 13 years old, I knew I wanted to go to San Francisco.







April 19th, 1991





I had an interesting conversation with Marco at the bakery today.



“Hello, Aubrey.” His hands were behind his back, always mimicking the posture of a gentleman.





“Hello,” I murmured. My eyes skirted from pastry to pastry.





He turned to me. “How are you today?”





I bit my lip from muttering something rude. “I’m fine, thank you.” I saved myself from a boring story by not asking about him about his day.





We moved up in line, and two orders were spent in silence. Sweet, sweet silence.





“You don’t like me much, Aubrey, do you?” Marco finally asked.





“It doesn’t take a detective to figure that out.”





He sighed. “What did I do? Is it my teeth?”





The frightening image of the gap in between his teeth flashed in my mind. I cringed.





“Listen,” I said, turning to face him, “It’s not you. It’s my mother. It’s always my mother. Maybe I’d like you if she didn’t force you on me, or maybe if you stopped annoying me every minute of the day.” I promptly moved up and ordered a custard pie, mother’s favorite. It’s always my job to fetch it.





“I’m sorry,” Marco whispered. “It’s not always your mother who wants me to talk to you. Sometimes I just want to.”





I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. “Then let’s eliminate something right now. I’m never going to ‘be with you’ or be your girlfriend. It will not happen no matter how hard you or my mother want it to. I’m leaving this town as soon as I turn 18 next month.”





“I see. Your Mother…she’s letting you?”





“Of course not,” I muttered. “I’ll be an adult, so I’ll be able to do what I want.”





I grabbed the paper bag with the pie. “Is that all?”





“Your Mother will be heartbroken if you leave.”





“Heartbroken?!” I spat. “She seems heartbroken every day that I’m here.”





I didn’t wait for his response.







April 20th, 1991





I’m surprised Marco didn’t reveal the information he acquired about me to my Mother. I know, because she would have confronted me about it today. There’s a part of me that wishes he did tell her, so I wouldn’t have to do it myself. She’s going to attempt to tighten the straps around me, but she doesn’t know I already have the scissors, ready to escape.


“Mother,” I said, walking into the kitchen, “have you spoken to Marco lately?”





She sliced celery with fury. “No. Why?”




“Oh,” I murmured, “no reason. I just told him some things yesterday at the bakery.”





“What did you tell him?” Mother dumped a handful of celery into the steaming soup on the stove.





I swallowed. “I shared with him my plans for after graduation. You know I’m graduating in a month and a half, right?”





Her head tilted sideways in frustration. “Yes, yes, I know that, Aubrey. Get on with what you want to tell me that you’re avoiding.”





I began to tap my foot against the floor. I have to be brave. It’s going to happen, I need to shred the blueprint she gave me. I’m going to be my own person. “I’m going to San Francisco after I graduate.”





She raised her head ever so slowly, an icy cold stare digging at me. Her voice had broken glass sticking out of it, that’s how dangerous it was. “That is not happening. You and Marco---”





“Me and Marco?” I exclaimed. “If he had told you what I said to him, it would include the fact that he and I will never, ever happen. I am not marrying him. I will not stay here and become an accountant. I want to live by the ocean and be a photographer—“





Then it was her turn to interrupt me. “Photographer?” She said it like I was complimenting satan. “How are you going to make a living off of that!?”





“Well, Mother, see, I’m the type of person that would rather be happy and make less money than make a lot of money and be unhappy with what I’m doing. And that’s why I suspect you’re so mean all the time, you don’t enjoy your life!”





Her face contorted into a scowl. “How preposterous! I love my life!”





“Oh, I’m sure. I actually bet grandma forced you to be who you are now! And that’s why you’re so damn mean!”





“STOP!” She screamed. Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. “Aubrey, you are wrong, so completely wrong. Grandma didn’t force me to ‘be anyone’. I made myself this way, and that’s why I molded a future for you. I wanted you to be the person I never was.”





I was stunned to silence. “You would have wanted to be forced to marry? And to be an accountant?”





“No,” She softened up, like the layer of anger that was eternally on her face was lifted for this one moment. “I just want to make sure you’d have a husband. And yes, I always wanted to be an accountant. I just…I never got the proper education to become one…” She straightened up. Somehow, the layer of anger settled back. “Go. Go to San Francisco.”





“Are you serious?”





“Yes, now leave.”





“Leave?” I inquired. “I still have a month until graduation.”





She rubbed her temples. “I meant this house. Leave this house. I need a moment.”





I scampered away, feeling relieved that there’s a part of her that might be able to accept it.







September 1st, 1995





I made it.



I just came home from a wedding shoot. Last night I also submitted some of my best photos to National Geographic to become a photographer for them. If you’re wondering what home is, it’s a sunny apartment I’ve been living in for the past four years. It’s on the outskirts of San Francisco, a merry ten minute ride from the ocean. Ah, the ocean. It’s enormous and beautiful and windy and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of it. It stretches out in the horizon, and it never ends. In my entire life up until I was 18, everything had an end. Sometimes, things didn’t even have a beginning. Now, my future feels like the ocean, like it begins with the step in the water, and it stretches on, where all my hard work would take me.

As for Mother, she became cold and even more distant before I left. I honestly feel really bad for her. She’s subjected herself to live a life she’s unhappy about, and molded the life she wanted onto her only daughter. How sad that she lost both herself and me in the process. Before my departure, I paid a live-in caregiver to stay with her and clean the house and take care of her. She needs it.

I'm also not succumbed to be hounded by peculiar mayor's sons. I'm engaged, and all on my own. I can proudly say my mother arranged none of it. I met a man named Paul during a photoshoot one day. Something instantly clicked between us, and we became great friends. That friendship quickly escalated to a relationship.

Now, I'm finally happy. I have no regrets. All the pieces of my life are falling into place; it all feels right. I'm living my dream! It just took a little snipping of strings and some breaking free to do it.