It’s 7:30 am here in the city. It’s strangely quiet for a Thursday. Or maybe my hearing is less acute from lack of sleep, I’m not sure.

Sugar is softly humming a pleasant sleepy snore; the turtles are lazy not quite sure if they want to wake; and the house is still dark silent. The birds and cars echo from beyond the walls, but no one else inside stirs.

I’ve been up all night arranging and scheduling the details of next week, lining up contacts and particulars on shoots, transportation and tickets. Markus is working on some time to get together and I’ve done all I can on my iPhone.

The next steps are my lists. Lists of what to bring, what to leave behind, info and contacts, as well as projects I know will go undone while I am gone.

And, the whole time I’ve been doing this, there has been a gnawing in my stomach. The feeling of being split. Do I follow what could be a huge opportunity for me and trust that Dee won’t fuck things up? I want to go. I need to go, yet I keep remembering my last trip to Germany and what awaited me on my return.

Can I trust her to have any strength, any resolve at all? Someone told me recently that she is clinging to me like a life preserver, desperate to keep this odd co-dependency in tact. But, what happens to me in the process? What happens to mom. The knots tighten in my stomach at the thought.

It is so strangely sad, this feeling of distrust, that I can’t be comfortable leaving mom alone with her now. I sit and wonder how things have spun so out of control and second guess my decision to go.

I wish I felt better about leaving, I wish the sister I knew so long ago was here. Or that mom was strong enough to deal with her if she melts down. Do wishes ever come true? I don’t know.

This feeling has thrown an ambivalent blanket over my excitement for this trip. Not even being asked to do my first solo album cover seems to give me a rush.

Maybe I will feel different on the plane. Maybe I will breathe if mom FaceTime’s me with an “all’s quiet.” Maybe then I can enjoy this….maybe.
Do wishes come true?