On the Road Again...

I just can’t wait to be on the road again! 🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵

And I am, starting today! My mom and I leave for a grand South Western adventure.  We will be going to Anza Borrego, Joshua Tree, Sedona, Grand Canyon, Marble Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Zion and Vegas. Mostly places she has never been before...and some I haven’t been to either.

The trip was born out of a kind of solemn task:  scatter my dad’s ashes.  Which we will do on this trip, on his first heavenly birthday and what would have been his 83rd actual birthday.  It will be nice to honor him and spend some time reminiscing about him and our lives together.  I imagine there will be a few tears as well as some good laughs.  I made a playlist of all his favorite songs when he was dying.  The three of us sat in his room, him kinda there, mostly not there, listening to the music I grew up on, my mom and I singing, and my dad seeming to really enjoy the music.  It was a moment that will forever be etched in my memory.  Just the three of us and the songs that made our histories.  I am hopeful we can create another moment like that on this trip for him.  I miss him...

I will also turn 31 years sober on this trip.  Which is a miracle.  I can’t believe I have been sober that fucking long.  I can’t believe that I stayed since my first meeting.  I can’t believe any of this life I have today.  I was so fucked up (still am in some ways) but I have grown up and changed so very much in the last 31 years.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I not only made a choice to set the booze and drugs down...I also made a choice to change.  Fundamentally and pervasively, on a daily basis.  Pretty cool!

And as an added bonus to an already pretty epic trip, I get to spend a lot of one on one time with my mom.  My mom who cared for my dad while he failed for the last 12 years.  I get to be of service to her and go on this adventure with her.  She hasn’t really left her house in more than six years.  I got her out to Big Sur for her birthday in November.  But other than that, she has been at home taking care of my dad.  I am excited to get her all to myself.  I am excited to show her some absolutely spectacular places.  I am grateful we are getting this time together, just us

I always have a hard time leaving my home.  The couple of days before a big trip I always feel like canceling because I will miss my home and my pets.  But I know that feeling will pass.  I will be arrived at a place of peace with leaving and a grand excitement about being on the road once more.  Like most things in this life, I just have to do a little work to get out of my own way!

This morning, all that existential dread is gone, and I am fucking ready! As my friend Mitch always says, “LET’S GO!”  Indeed, let’s go!

Again, still...