Unexpected Run In

When I first moved back to Boston, my biggest fear was running into my parents. I was 24 years old and although I have a very close relationship with my family, the idea of seeing them anyplace unplanned was too much for me.

Living 5 minutes away from my parents was not the original plan. But when they sold the house I grew up in to move to a trendy new condo near Boston at the same time I decided to move back home to my own apartment in the city, we became, for all intents and purposes, neighbors. I was petrified I would bump into them all over town. What if they were at the same restaurant that I was at on a date? What if they went to the same bar as me? What if I saw them everywhere? After living so far away from them for so many years, I learned to enjoy my space. I did not want parental supervision.

In the end, there was no reason to worry. I never ran into my parents while I was one a date, they are not really the type to hang around at a bar, and they gave me as much space as I needed. To make things even better, they let me do my laundry at their house every week, eat as many dinners with them as I wanted and take home all of the leftovers, and come and go as I pleased to their house. In the 4 years we lived 5 minutes apart, I only ran into them 2 times, once was at the market and once was when I went to lunch at their local Finagle-A-Bagel. Those are pretty good odds. And, over that time I grew up a lot. Living near my parents was nice, I enjoyed their company as friends and looked forward to hanging out with out with them voluntarily.

At our new house, Josh and I actually live a little bit farther away from my parents than before. We no longer go to the same market and it takes a whole 10-15 to get to them. With all of this 'extra space' I never even considered bumping in to them when we are out and about. Although by miles we are close, our neighborhoods could not be farther apart. So you can imagine my surprise when we ran into my parents at Cabots last night.

To be fair, Josh and I went to dinner with my parents. They had not seen our house since moving day and we were excited to show off all of our hard work and decorating skills. We gave them the grand tour then the girls had sushi and the boys had pad thai. At the end of the meal, Josh started talking about ice cream. I immediately said no because we had had 2 ice creams the day before. When my parents dropped us off, Josh finally convinced me that ice cream was a good idea, so we drove around the corner to get some. As we walked in the door, low and behold there were my parents.

I started laughing so hard I was crying. Josh didn't realize what I was laughing at and actually walked over to my mom and stood next to her for a good ten seconds before realizing what was going on. My mom never once noticed him standing there until she started walking the door and saw me cracking up. After all of these years of never seeing my parents when I was out, there they were! In my neighborhood ice cream joint. Good thing I'm old enough to appreciate living so close.