Goodbye Girl

(Book Trailer & Cover to the side):)

Prologue

Goodbye Girl

Have you ever questioned where the good in goodbye is? I have. But that’s probably because I have said it way too many times. All my life in fact. It’s not easy living a life of goodbyes. The word has come to symbolizes the end, the fact that there is nothing permanent in this world, good things or bad things, they all end with that word at the end of the day. Which is just as well I guess because we all have to come to realise that nothing is ever built to last.

Living with a mother who does not like to stay in one place for too long (“There is so much to discover out there, new people to meet, places to see, why should we confide ourselves to one environment?”), I had grown to be an expert at not letting anyone come too close to me. What was the point if at the end of the day you knew that you would eventually move, leaving these people behind? Sometimes it’s good to have norm in your life and my mother just doesn’t get that. I mean don’t get me wrong moving had its upsides in that you get to meet different types of people and see new places and most importantly get to start a fresh, but it gets old. New people become old after awhile, the new places familiar and you’re fresh start becomes an ending, (the point in which my mum decides it’s time to up and move again), it’s just not worth it. All the introductions, the hassle of finding your place in a new environment, making friends, getting familiar with teachers, knowing where the best place for a good hamburger is, getting a job or knowing which bus to take to the mall. It gets old and tiring.

Off course I’ve never told my mother this. I couldn’t look at her excited face and tell her that I hated moving around so much. Mostly because I knew the life she’d had.  It wasn’t an easy one. She had me at the age of 17 after a drunken night and upon her parents finding out, they gave her the boot. They were apparently one of those super religious people and my mother had “brought shame to them and their family name, she was no daughter of theirs”. Till this day I have not met them. My mother lost contact with my grandparents over the years, moved as far as possible from her hometown and never looked back. My mother always says there are too many horrible memories where her parents are concerned and so we never really talk about them. They still send me the occasional Christmas and birthday presents that always have contact details, which my mother always rips (“In the time of my need they kicked me out, now they decide to get in contact, well I got news for you, it’s too damn late!”). It’s a mystery how they keep track of where my mother and I are.

Mum always tells me I’m the best thing to ever happen to her, but sometimes I wonder. She was a straight A student on her way to a leading Ivy League College, she was also very beautiful and her life was pretty much on track.  Before I came along and changed all her plans. I wonder sometimes what her life would have been like if she didn’t get pregnant. Maybe she would have been a successful lawyer with a loving husband and perfect little children with a big house and a fancy car. The one time I voiced this thought aloud to her, she told me  “Grace, honey, I’ve never once stopped to think of what my life would have been like if you hadn’t come along and you shouldn’t either. You know why? Because I wouldn’t want a life where you weren’t in it. I’m very blessed to have you in my life, you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me and you should always remember that. God put you in my life for a reason.” Whenever I feel that my mother’s life would have been way easier without me, I remember this little speech of hers and it always makes me feel better. In all the years of suffering my mother never lost her faith in God, she always says that it is not nice to accept the good from God but not the bad. To be honest I didn’t quite understand it at first but now I kind of do. It’s kind of like all the people we love, they’re good to us sometimes and bad at other times, but one fact remains we never stop loving them.

As to my biological father, I don’t even have a name. All I know is that he was a football player who was also a jerk. I don’t know if my mother told him, but she said it wouldn’t have made a difference. He had a football scholarship and she wasn’t up for making him choose between his dream and his child. If he really cared he would have wondered where my mother had disappeared to after that night.  I think there’s more to it, but I have never asked. It brings painful memories to my mother and besides there is no use in crying over split milk, no good in dwelling in the past.

She has a few floral shops opened around the country and uses the excuse of expanding to move us all around the continent of America. Vase with Grace has really found success over the last seventeen years. My mother had it rough the first five years of my life and we had barely to go on with. Things are better now with the financial sector of our lives. Mum dated a few guys here and there but it was never serious and usually ended after a few months.  As to me, I’ve never really had a boyfriend as such because I knew deep down that it wouldn’t last, that I had to say goodbye.

It never occurred to me that the next time we moved it’d be any different.