The day before my last road trip
9/24/2018
I’m packing for a couple of days of road travel. Not sure the destination, Seligman Az.-- or something else Death Valley like– it’ll be something of that direction and vibe. (I’m still thinking)
I thought my last trip back from Oklahoma a couple of years ago was the last trip I would drive by myself -- It got a little uncomfortable towards the end -- Ghosts and vision problems mostly, but alone with myself while tired and driving 80 miles an hour got a bit waring on me. I came home happy to have someone in my life who loved me and wasn’t too hard to share time with. I have my reasons for this trip, though they seem intellectually stupid to me now as I write this. I think it’s an emotional thing – I need to touch things I’ve left behind, and to say goodbye to them in case I don’t have another chance. I can write down memories and try to touch my kids with them, but the honoring of the actual pieces of me I’ve left behind in scattered spots along the road is a formality that needs a proper tending to. And yes, there are reasons for this trip and reasons for it now.
I was hospitalized a few months ago and now have to meet an evaluation committee at the DMV to see if I get to keep my license to drive. It is the ‘one last chance’ of this that’s leading me to take this trip – sort of a farewell to freedom tour of places I’ve been to and left a pieces of my soul to mark the spot —much like an old dog pisses on something he owns to keep you from stealing it.
This recent hospitalization also fucked me up in the head for a good bit, and while I’m not claiming PTSD or anything, it did shake up my concept of living forever. – I’m starting to believe that when I’m gone, that’s it. It’s been a shock getting used to the idea, and I’m not used to it, but aware of the reminders that keep popping up around me.
So, it seems like I should do this trip, and that it might a last one I do by myself, Anyway, I’m not unaware that I’m being dramatic – but if I turn out to be right, it’s better to say I called it. Makes me look smarter and more Nostradamus’y. The grandkids will love it.
I will plan to put some updates while on the road, with pictures, on my blog, makingwidowswince.com. I plan to be gone for only a couple of days – three on the outside. I can’t wait to get home already– this trip feels like a job I’m unhappy to go to – it’s like planning a weekend acid trip, but without the buzz of added testosterone and stupidity.
Explicit memory | A kind of memory based on explicit remembering or conscious recollection of some prior learning episode, or the kind of memory test that requires explicit remembering; usually defined in contrast to implicit memory, involving the ability of behavior to be influenced by previous experience without requiring the individual to consciously recollect the prior experience. |
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