That time I slept with my mom in a car for a month

Yes I did. Me and my mom living in a car for a month...with a dog.

We drove to Yellowstone, a place where I always wanted to visit. Then we went to the canyons in Utah. Lastly, we climbed some mountains in Colorado. 

Travelling with my mom was difficult. It's like having a job. I have to translate for her, I have to be her photographer, I have to be a travel guide and I almost have to supervise her. Sometimes, I forget that she is getting older, but also she is not that old...not old enough to forget closing car doors and to misplace important stuff all the time. 

Needless to say, being at such close proximity with my mom for a month has been stressful. I hardly enjoyed a moment because I always have to snap pictures of her so she can show off on social media. I always have to answer her questions to which she knows the answer to. I have to hear her repeating the same conversation on her phone. Yes, I'm dressing warm. Yes, we're two hours ahead, Yes, it's safe.

This trip has made me see my mom as an individual. She can be so selfish sometimes. One time, we were at a place without reception and she just wandered off for an hour without telling me. I couldn't leave because she would not be able to find me. Good for her that she is enjoying herself but I was pissed for a couple of days. 

At the same time, I'm glad my mom wants to do what I like to do. I don't know many 60 year old moms who want to sleep in a car for 1 month, explore slot canyons and climb mountains. I'm also proud of her for learning new things. I know those are great memories that I will look back on, and I will miss those moments after all. Dyno sleeping on our feet, aspen trees, twisty mountain roads, iced coffees, hot canyons, geysers, cold mornings, dunkin donuts, audiobooks, the joy of having clean toilets at truck stops, the feeling of a nice shower after a long sticky day...

My favorite places were probably Wild Horse Canyon and Corona Arch. We were there early, we were alone and could scream without anyone hearing. I also loved the Goblins in Utah, it made me feel like I was in a video game. My least favorite places are the national parks overlooks where you see people in hiking boots and hiking poles on a 15-minute walk. It's so pretentious. I also didn't like Antelope island in Salt Lake...I've never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. The most stupid thing I did was probably sitting too close to the canyon edge for a picture. The funniest thing was mistaking a garbage can for a bear and running to a toilet to hide.

I really love road trips, I love early mornings and I love sleeping in cars. I hope to do this every year.

Favorite quotes of 2023

“things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully” - A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara)

“he was so desperate to move away from the life he was in, the life he'd had; he wanted to be someone whom no one knew and who knew no one” - A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara)

“What do you call a heart that is simultaneously full and breaking? Maybe there's no word for it, but for some reason, it makes me think of rain falling through sunlight”. - Upgrade (Blake Crouch)

“Well, when you wonder something, doesn’t that mean part of you wants to believe in it? I think we want to prove things, in life, more than we want to disprove them. We want to believe.” - Vicious (V. E. Schwab)

“all roads lead to something you were always predestined to do.”- A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)

“There’s something called the Law of Truly Large Numbers . Get a big enough sample size , outrageous things are bound to happen. - Pretty Girls (Karin Slaughter)

“I hate him for not taking care of himself. And I love him for living his life on his own terms.” - The Good Daughter (Karin Slaughter)

“I am writing because they told me to never start a sentence with because. But I wasn’t trying to make a sentence— I was trying to break free. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.” - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong)

“The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. Each departure, then, is final. Only their children return; only the future revisits the past.” - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong)

“I was a trial to my poor mamma, too. The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours.” - The Four Winds (Kristin Hannah)

“Wild. A lover of cruel beauty and splendid isolation.” - The Great Alone (Kristin Hannah)

“As your father would say, it’s time for you either to shit or get off the pot.” - Kisscut (Karin Slaughter)

“Sometimes you don’t see what you’re not looking for.” - Beyond Reach (Karin Slaugher)

“You’re supposed to look like a mistake. What you really look like is a little piece of Earth come to life.” - Emergency Skin (N. K. Jemisin)

“I once read somewhere that if your mind continuously returns to the same person over and over again, it means that they’re thinking of you as well.” -Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes (Eric LaRocca)

“Corny, I know. But fuck it. Nobody else will read this journal. If I want to be corny, I will. Aren’t we all corny in our thoughts? Aren’t we corny with the ones we love? We’re just too afraid to say it to others for fear of embarrassment.” - Look Closer (David Ellis)

“I talked to all kinds of therapists, who explained to me that we look at suicide through this prism of control. We think we can control other things and other people. So when someone we love takes their own life, we think we could have stopped it. We think we had control, and we blew it. We are so unwilling to give up this notion that we control things and people around us that we’d rather feel guilt over the suicide than admit that we didn’t have that control in the first place.” - Look Closer (David Ellis)

“Because now I’m doing it. The time for worrying, obsessing, debating, second-guessing, is over. It’s liberating, I must say, to be done with the conflict. Now I can focus.” - Look Closer (David Ellis)

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.” - The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

“When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing.” - The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” - The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

“She is trying, and trying has become easier.” - The Push (Ashley Audrain)

“It’s a trait I learned as a kid— don’t get too close or too comfortable— because whenever I did, I was uprooted and had to start all over again.” - Unmasked (Paul Holes)

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.” - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“How much is truly unforgettable? Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.” - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“Like, why isn’t the tail an important part of the lamb? How much of you can fall off before something important is lost?” - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“It does seem like there’s more opportunity to reflect on sadness and feelings of inadequacy, and also a pressure to be happy all the time.” - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“But isn’t being alone closer to the truest version of ourselves, when we’re not linked to another, not diluted by their presence and judgments? We form relationships with others, friends, family. That’s fine. Those relationships don’t bind the way love does. We can still have lovers, short-term. But only when alone can we focus on ourselves, know ourselves. How can we know ourselves without this solitude?”- I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“Even considering the data that shows the majority of marriages don’t last, people still think marriage is the normal human state. Most people want to get married. Is there anything else that people do in such huge numbers, with such a terrible success rate?”- I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way never thought or believed possible.” - I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid)

“How many people live day to day in a kind of haze, moving from one thing to the next without ever feeling anything? Being busy without ever being absorbed or excited or renewed?” - Foe (Iain Reid)

“Habitual, comfortable activity is the worst kind of prison, because the bars are concealed. You can never learn anything that way.”- Foe (Iain Reid)

“I would just go. I wouldn’t spell it out. Not explaining myself is more powerful. Why should the onus be on me to explain myself? It should be on him to try to figure out what happened. I would still leave a note, though. A note with his name on it. But it would be blank. There would be nothing there. It would say nothing and everything at the same time. What could be more explicit than that?” - Foe (Iain Reid)

“Beauty isn’t fleeting. Beauty is eternal. But . . . I’m not. I’m fleeting.” - Foe (Iain Reid)

“I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.” - Foe (Iain Reid)

“No. They stay together because it’s expected, because it’s what they know. They try to make it work, to endure it, and end up living under some kind of spiritual anesthetic. They go on, but they are numb. And the more I think about, the more I think there’s nothing worse than to live your life this way. Detached, but abiding. It’s immoral.” - Foe (Iain Reid)