A Journey that Conceived a Relinquish.

 A small town diner is not a place I usually eat at, but I had been hungry one hundred miles ago. The stale chips and snack cakes, I carelessly thrown and left on my dashboard most of the trip, had not been a sufficient diet and was making my stomach ache. I needed something more fresh and cooked.

Even though this little diner had a nutritious upgrade from my road trip snacks, to me the diner would still be a restaurant with impolite servers and dirty bathrooms. Ignoring where I was at, I sat in my seat, located by the window, ate my lunch silently and stared at the diner parking lot, deep in thought. 

 What will I say to her, when I finally walk up to the door and meet the woman whom decided to abandon me, for whatever reason she tells me. Not easy seeing your biological mother for the first time, I thought to myself, and then that uncontrollable nervous feeling came rushing back to me.

Just then a rehearsed, young athletic looking burnet, hair up in a bun, jarred me back to where I was and asked me, while she smiled a fake smile to me, if I wanted more to drink.

“Can I refill your coffee hun?”

“No, I am fine, thank you.” I smiled a fake smile back to the waitress, covering my coffee cup with my hand.

She waddled off to the next customer, two tables behind me, asking him the same question, while I resumed my blank stare out the diner window and finished eating the cheeseburger I ordered.

After paying my bill, stomach relieved now, I hastily left the diner and entered my white, ford expedition max SUV, ready to hit the road. Just forty-six miles left and I will be standing face to face with the one who gave birth to me, thirty three years ago.

I am so overwhelmed with mixed emotions, there were so many times I wanted to turn around and head straight back to my mundane life, one bedroom apartment, back in salt lake city, Utah.

“Thud, Thud!”

“Ahh!“ I yell and slap my steering wheel in frustration. My face shapes itself into an angry form, eyebrows pushed down forcefully on their own.

I glance in the rearview mirror, why am I so angry right now, I say to myself. Things happen, she probably had a very good reason for giving you up and leaving you with that fake family, who did raise you and give you a fine structural home. They provided my every need, except the loving belonging, I so desperately longed for.

My adopted parents did care for me, but the distant they undoubtedly showed and shared with me, came as a comfort shock, when they told me I was adopted. I always played and hinted around I came from another mother and father, when my adopted mother would scold me for being way to skinny and not having a heavier body mass as her. 

She would say things like, “you need more meat on your bones, sonny. No child of mine is going to be scrawny.” Why them I asked myself. All the families in the world and I had to end up with these overweight bullies. 

One more exit for my exit, and I turn down it once I reach it. After the light turns green at the stop light, I make a right and head towards my destination.

Twenty four more miles left to go and the closer I get to the town where my birth-mother resides, my chest swells up while my heart beats faster. I look in the rearview mirror again to check if I appear presentable enough, though I inquire to myself if the way I look should really matter. I run my hand over my chin to check how well I shaved, and then I check my hair, brushing it over my ears with my fingers. I start to become insecure of my looks and notice a flaw with my right cheek bone being higher than my left. 

“Stop.” I say aloud to myself.

Your just nervous, stop trying to find abnormal features, I think to myself. I abandon the rearview mirror and push the button on the driver seat to adjust the vehicle seat back a little, for a more relaxing position. I pass a sign that says, 'Muldro', fourteen miles left.

Therefore, I get anxious, and next, my stomach starts producing butterflies, and the steering wheel becomes slippery, from my sweat pouring unnaturally rapid out of my hands. I take one of my hands off the steering wheel and reach for a piece of paper, laying in the passenger seat, with her address scribbled on it, 1280 wheeler road, I read.

The speed limit now drops down to fifty-five. Not much further, I just got to find the street, so I type in the address into the GPS. Forty-five is now the speed limit, vehicles pass by going the opposite direction unconcernedly, and I wonder which one of these people may know my birth mother.

Suddenly, the GPS lady tells me to go five more miles, then turn left at the next stop light, speed limit drops to thirty-five. School zone ahead, but thankfully it is only two forty in the afternoon.

I see the stop light ahead, I am now shaking with my nerves going hey wire, I wipe sweat from my brow. I ask myself if I am happy that this meeting is going to take place, or am I angry. The GPS tells me to turn left and I stop at the stop light as it is red. I sit there for about a minute and then the light turns green. Turning left down wheeler road, the GPS says just a few more miles and you have reached your destination. 

This is it, all these years and I will finally be in the presence of my biological mother. I wonder what she looks like, she did not send me a picture with the letter she mailed to me, three weeks ago. She did not even give me a phone number, just an address and a p.s., I hope to see you soon.

“You have reached your destination.” Claimed the GPS lady.

I turn her off, glare around at the house where my birth mother lives, and try to gather a mental picture of what she might be like. A quick look over of myself, shake my nerves off and I exit my vehicle.

Once I step out of my vehicle I head towards her door, but I happen to notice there is no car in the drive. Stepping up to the door, I see that all the curtains in her windows are closed for some weird reason, I ring the door bell and knock twice. No one answers right away, therefore I knock and ring the doorbell again. Like before, nothing.

“Where is she?” I asked aloud, annoyed.

I start observing around and then I see a piece of paper sticking out between the door and the door frame, slightly up from the door handle. I abruptly pull the piece of paper out, unfold it and I start to read it. My jaws drop and my eyes went wide with shock on what was written on the piece paper.

“Dear Mathew. I am sorry for leading you on, but I just can not face my past right now. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Maybe soon, with God willing, we will finally get to meet. Your,…I mean, Heather.”

The paper fell from my hand when my fingers, as well my whole body went numb. She did not even want to call me son. I stared at the door of her house for hours before I decided to drive back home.

At that moment, driving back home, I had a strange sadness feeling, like I lost my dearest love. She did it again, I thought to myself, she relinquished me once again. She really did give me up, ...again.

The end.