Growing up without a mother is like peanut butter without the jelly. You can do it, but that doesn”t mean it”s to be done. It is perhaps one of the biggest disadvantages a woman faces. Alas I was spun into the world of beauty. By 7 years old I was reading Vogue and competing nationally in beauty pageants.
I never did, just delegated, from a very young age. I didn”t have to do anything; everything was presented to me on a silver spoon.
After high school, I did what every teenager in my small hometown of Syracuse, New York could only dream of doing; I fled south to beautiful New York City to pursue dissipation and perseverance at 18.
Fast forward through seven years of modeling, parties, boyfriends and spontaneous trips through a city that refuses to sleep. A city so magnificent I couldn”t imagine I belonged anywhere else in the world.
Abruptly, my world came crashing down when I lost my father unexpectedly to cancer last year. On the inside, I knew New York and I needed to take a break.
At first the thought of leaving New York was profound and illogical.
I had met friends who became family. Why would I leave a city that had taught me so much, offered endless culture and delivered Thai food at 4:20 a.m.?
New York and I were ending a beautiful relationship. It was a hard breakup and I didn”t want to end it, but I had always wanted to travel. I decided I would risk going outside my New York bubble.
I cried silently the entire way to the airport with my oversized Chanel sunglasses on while I looked down at my perfectly manicured black nails. I had two suitcases, my carry on and my cat, Marley.
On the plane I saw myself being picked up out of my cocoon and dropped in Lake County. I was suddenly deaf and blind, figuratively speaking.
With me I took the most valuable thing I had. The skill of all skills, a continuous cycle of metamorphosis to maintain status quo under my dubbed name as the “It Girl.”
When I landed in San Francisco, I took a deep breath and thought to myself as Carrie Bradshaw had said, “if you”re tired of New York, you take a napa, you don”t move to Napa.” Naturally I miss New York, but perhaps I am just taking a napa.
Amber Dems is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. She can be reached at adems@record-bee.com or 263-5636, ext. 39.
