432 miles

I ate a late breakfast at a little cafe I had never been to before. As I sat eating a cheese omelet, bacon, refried beans, flour tortilla, drinking instant coffee, listening to Mexican music from the boombox in the kitchen, I thought "I've never been happier."

Yesterday I wasn't so happy. I was unable to entertain myself. I couldn't find a spot out of the sun. I didn't know what book to next start. Nagging doubts - why did I stay here? did I fuck up? - were as pesky as the gnats.

There is no discernible difference between today and yesterday. Each day is the same when you have no job, no lover, no co-workers, no leaky roof, no unpaid bills, no broken-down car, no friends, no boss, no garden, no appointments. When you have NOTHING but yourself you can't help but notice that you and only you are responsible for your own happiness. Shit. How I would so love to blame others for my crappy moods.

So lesson #432 will be to carry this knowledge into the everyday world when I'm back in it. I will need to remember how easy it is to shift my attitude when I find myself bored with my job or feeling lonely or my van has broken down or when I am especially hard on myself because another day has gone by and I haven't done flabby underarm exercises or practiced spanish or done any of the other 'shoulds' some nasty beast in my head tells me i should be doing. With practice, should anything dire come along (ill health, death, bankruptcy, heartbreak) I 'should' be able to deal with it rather nicely. At least that's my goal.

On July 29th after my return from Portland I filled up the van's gas tank in Tucson and drove south to Mexico. I have not added one drop of gasoline since. The trip-o-meter reads 432. I think I can get somewhere around 450 miles on a tank of gas. My goal is to see if I can make it to the end of October before I reach that mark.

I have one more goal: To read my daughter's entry without rolling my eyes about why she let the cowboy punk rocker back into her bed. (Actually, I understand all too well why she did it; I think I'm just jealous.)