Alessia was standing in the living room when I got home. Her back was to me, but I could tell she was in a foul mood again. Her stiff shoulders almost touching her ears and the balled fists gave her away. I also could have sworn I saw steam jutting out of her ears. Depending on how strong I felt, I handled these situations in one of two ways. 1.) Confronting her gently to find out what’s wrong, and 2.) ignoring it completely to avoid getting my head chopped off. But today I tried a different approach. At this point, she has to understand how much I care, so asking a thousand questions only annoys her more. Ignoring someone is never right, so this time I walked up to her, took her into my arms, and told her I loved her. No greeting. Just a love attack. Whatever is going on with her, she’ll tell me. And if she doesn’t, she’ll know I’m here for her.
“And I’m here if you want to talk,” I threw in for good measure.
I was prepared to walk away and leave her, but she opened up! I got so excited.
“It’s just that… Mom, I’m BORED! We don’t go anywhere anymore! Why can’t things be like they used to?”
That was not the issue I was expecting, but I could handle it.
“This is real life, babe. I work, and you guys have school. And you’re with your dad on the weekends when we’re all free.”
She let out a frustrated growl.
“I can’t wait to be done with school!”
Even though my statement was true, we really haven’t had much fun as a family since they moved in with me. They were so used to me being the fun parent because I had them on the weekends and erroneously thought things would always be that way. But apart from us having dinner last week, and then our city adventure weeks ago, that’s really all we’ve done. I had an easy fix for that. It’s a school night, but it’s still early. And, in two days, it won’t matter anymore, anyway.
“Do you want to hang out with me tonight?” I asked.
“Now?”
“Sure! Why not? We can get dressed up and go to a nice restaurant for dinner. What do you think?”
She peered at me suspiciously. “Just me and you?”
“Just us girls.”
That appeared to satisfy her. “Okay.”
We went our separate ways to get dressed. I put on a very colorful, flowery summer dress as an attempt to invoke the spirit of spring in Newcrest. It’s STILL chilly here, and there’s only five days left in the season! I hope the summer isn’t the same way.
I admired myself in the mirror, twirling in my cute dress and eyeing my smaller frame. This is a perfect size for me. I’m definitely not big anymore, but I’m also not the toothpick I was when I was young. With a smile and an ocean full of pride, I marked this day as the end of my weight loss journey. I did it!
While Alessia was still dressing, I went to Luca and told him the plan. He wanted to come, but I told him not this time.
“Your sister really needs this,” I said.
He thought about it for a second before nodding approvingly.
“Have fun.”
