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It’s hard to pinpoint the moment you stop feeling like a person. I felt like my body was in atrophy, my mind blank. Too much was happening at once and I distinctly heard a ping from my brain. I was broken. March 31st is forever the day my mom died. I spent years holding my family’s collective hands to soothe their grief. After five years I was exhausted and the one person I needed the most was my mom; my Lorelai Gilmore. In a moment of stress last year I left one project half-completed at work and was fired without warning. Devastated didn’t cover it. I had no job to distract me and my entire self-worth crumbled in bereavement like a store-bought cookie in a glass of milk. So I did what we dispossessed are driven to do. I ran away. I asked a friend to call her Aunt Stephanie-a Bronx native- about a discount ticket to a Broadway show that I was desperate to see. She came through and I hopped the cheapest flight to the Big Apple so that I could block out the 31st in style. Shattered. Jobless. Guilty. Traveling solo. With every worry upon me. Fun! New York is gritty, fast paced and punk rock. It’s everything I wanted. I felt like I belonged the moment skyscrapers came into view from the window seat of Spirit’s 19th row. I walked 14 miles my first day because I wanted to see everything. I offered to take Stephanie for a drink that night to say thanks and pay her for the ticket. When we met I was hit with an air of seriousness. She seemed so stoic and stern. Honestly, I was a little afraid of her. I didn’t really know what to say so I focused on the red pigeon strutting outside of the ATM vestibule. I suddenly felt very small in every way a person could feel small whilst we chit-chatted toward an Irish pub. Over drinks we gabbed like it wasn’t our first time meeting one another. I grew unabashed in my storytelling. She listened intently and only showed mild discomfort as I ranted myself to tears without judgement. I told her why I came to the city; how much I loved being there and about my mom and work. I said I was fine now that I was away from it. Stephanie immediately called me out on my bull and said “Distance doesn’t change anything. You seem exceptionally sad and lost.” I was glad we were in a darkened corner in the back of the dining area while I ugly cried. I was not ready to have my pain shown to me just then and it burned. She asked me to think about what I wanted out of my time here, and what I hope to do when I get home. I wanted to get back into theatre, I realized only then. She told me that she wanted me to take the ticket and that she hoped that I would spend the money I had brought on something fun because I deserved it. I cried even harder at her kindness, feeling undeserving of her gesture, but mostly undeserving of her. The more I tried to stop sobbing the harder and louder and snottier I became. The weight was lifted after that. Broken no more. Unbreakable. She mommed me. I cried because I ached for that mom hug. I cried because of her kindness. I cried as a goodbye to the shattered woman I felt I was. Finally, I cried because I was inspired for the first time in weeks. All of my darkened days of yearning and anger dropped away and replaced with this moment of loving contentment. Aunt Stephanie helped me grow by forging the connection I felt I lacked by neglecting myself and others. She was firm in her words to make me stop and look around at where I was, both metaphorically and literally. I felt connected at last. I found myself in New York City. I found a chosen family here. This beautiful, loud, slightly smelly, overpriced and overcrowded city was my refuge. My mom hug.