There's a Tear in My Beer

In the past few weeks, I have noticed that I have been listening to country music a lot.  Spotify suggested it, I clicked on it, and that has been my go-to car listening for weeks now.  I haven't listened to country music since the first year I lived in Texas and most songs seem to revolve around the artist spelling words out for us or songs about fun rivers and county fairs.   This Spotify-made list has classic songs from Dolly and Willie on there as well as new artists.  I cannot get the song "Last Night" by Morgan someone out of my head.  The song starts with the chorus!  Bold move! "Last night we let the liquor talk", I mean who can't relate to that? "I can't remember everything we said...".  Can this man see into my troubled soul and know that when I wake up hot and sweaty in the middle of the night after drinking too much I immediately wonder where my purse is and what came out of my mouth?  "but we said it all."; that is me any day of the week, drinking does not have to happen.  As I wondered why I was listening to this song yet again, I began to put it all together.  I am coming to the end of my Texas era, it is only natural in would be country music playing me out.

In four days, I will move to IL to be with my person!!  I am so excited!  We both have jobs!  A nice apartment! He has spent the summer finding hikes and walks and places to shop at and go.  I can't wait to be there with him and do this life with him.  I am giddy, and anticipatory, and excited!  SO excited! But, I am also sad.  And I know I can be two things at once because my friend Liz has told me that two things can be true at the same time.  And because I am.  I have lived in Texas longer than I lived in NY.  Like a decade longer.  I am not one of those people who say, or have cross-stitched on a pillow in my home, that I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could.  I don't say it because it is annoying and I don't have it cross-stitched because the only thing cross-stitched in my home says "Sucks to Suck", because it does.  I also don't quote Davy Crockett and say "You may all go to hell and I am going to Texas" because that is such a sick 1800's burn only Crockett should say it and because, well, Texas didn't end so well for him.(ahem, Alamo)

I am sad I couldn't put picture with Crockett and sexy eyebrows here instead, but it wasn't free.

So while I am SO excited, I am also taking time to see how I will miss Texas.  I will miss its tacos and BBQ.  I will miss its beautiful spring weather and wildflowers.  I will miss how everyone is always speeding.  I will miss a lightning storm that lights up the sky.  I will miss a glorious sunset spreading itself over a soccer field. I will miss my cozy classroom on the third floor.  The thing I will miss most though, after tacos, is people.  People I have been friends with since my kids were little.  People I have worked with.  People who have seen me at my best and my worst.  People I shared beers and stories and holidays with.  I cannot even start to think about how I will miss being close by for my kids.  

I have spent a good portion of the last week running around town and seeing people before I leave.  We talk and laugh and cry a little.  We hug and say "see you soon".  I didn't get to see the first friend I made in Texas so long ago when we were both paid $6/hr to dress like we were going to a funeral and work in a hotel, but Mark will always be my first friend in Texas and will always be my friend in Texas.  And I realize that all these people I am hugging goodbye will still be my friends in Texas.  And I can come back at any time and see them and eat tacos!

It is hard to close out an era.  It is sad to not see people you are used to seeing.  However, you can't have adventure if you stay in the same place.  And in this case, adventure also means love.  Sigh.  Swoon!  One friend said "it is like a fairy tale!" and another said "Man, you really wore him down".  Again, two things true at the same time!

I came to Texas a 20-year old kid with big bangs and believing that Taco Bell was Mexican food.  I have learned and grown and moved from all around Dallas to all around Austin.  I have marveled at a beautiful Texas hike and cursed the August sun.  I have raised my kids here.  I have really lived a good portion of my life here and a good life here. People have asked why I moved to Texas and I tell them that it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Thirty years later, I can say it was a great idea.

Rocky Mountain H--oly crap!

In less than a week, I will leave to take my first solo vacation that does not involved visiting family.  Technically, I am still visiting family for the first few days, but after that, it is just me, a backpack, an REI guide, and about 8 women I have never met before hiking through Rocky Mountain National Park.  Oh, you didn't know I was this adventurous? Believe me, neither did I.

Last summer, I got wistful thinking about the boy graduating and the bulk of parenting behind me. (never over, but those formative years are done).  I thought that if I was this sad about it a year in advance that I would be a mess come actual graduation.  What could I do to change this narrative?  A friend suggested that I do something I have never done, something for just me, and the solo vacation idea was born.

I love to hike, so make it about hiking!  I have no natural sense of direction and a completely irrational fear of bears, so it had to be a guided hike.  Plus, as a woman, I have a healthy fear of hiking on my own due to serial killers, rapists, and misogyny.  Hello, REI guided tours!  I also flatter myself thinking if I was in a co-ed group of hikers that I would have to fend off the tiresome advances of my fellow hikers, so an all-woman group it was.  

I know this fat bastard is just waiting for me.

At first, I chose and paid for the REI trip through Yellowstone.  I couldn’t wait.  It was rated Difficult.  I know difficult; no problem.  I started buying supplies, thinking about how to get in shape, eating right during soccer season because I figured the less I weighed, the less I would have to haul through the mountains.  I, um, got a map of Yellowstone and plotted out my hike.  I watched the news from Yellowstone about bear attacks.  I was prepared.  However, two months before my trip, REI emailed to say that they could not get backcountry permits and the trip was off.  This news came at the end of the school year and I was beyond fragile at this point, so I wept my sinuses out.  The bitter disappointment!  What had I logged all those calories for?  I have to say that REI was great about reaching out, listening, and then helping me pick another trip to take within days of the cancellation announcement.  With some time to reflect, I really think it was the world watching out for me.  Have you seen what a terrible mess Yellowstone is right now?  Also, I don’t think they were lying about the difficult rating and while I have prepared and trained, I have a feeling that their difficult might be more difficult than my difficult.  

Me, my backpack, and a group of women set to take on Rocky Mountain National Park.  I can’t wait!  I also can’t believe it!  And is it grows near and I have packed and repacked my backpack 82 times trying to see what I need, what I don’t, necessity vs luxury, I am getting very, very anxious.  I love to hike but do I love to hike with a 45 lb pack on my back for four days?  I have camped twice in my life: once was terrible and prevented me from camping for another twenty years, but the last time was great!  But, even great, my body was really sore from being on the ground over night.  Will I be able to move after three nights on the ground?  What if all the women in my group hate me?  What if I hate all of them?  What if I am too scared to get out of my tent to pee at night and get a raging UTI from holding it in and then have to hike with a raging UTI?  What if I have seriously overestimated my physical condition to do this?  What if, what if, what if.  

What if I am stronger than I think?  What if I see things I have never seen before?  What if my kids step up and take care of themselves and each other while I am gone?  What if I find purpose, a sense of self, and the room to breathe in this busy world?  What if this is my “Eat, Pray, Love” (minus the love) meets “The Wild” moment?  What if my legs and lungs burn with every step, but I keep stepping?  What if, what if, what if?

The last time I was this adventurous, my friend Amy and I got into her Plymouth Laser with AAA maps and drove from Buffalo to Dallas.  No cell phones, no GPS.  Two dumb teenagers in a car pointed south.  We made it there and back and only got a little lost in Indiana for about an hour or so.  We made it then and I will make it now.  I don’t need to lead or be at the front of the group, I am happy somewhere in the middle.  I don’t need to make friends because I like my own company.  I don’t need to be a rockstar backpacker, I just need to do it.

I will continue to worry just a little because that is how I am wired.  I will lie awake and worry about small things and big things and google “bear attacks RMNP”.  However, I will also let myself stop to think about how amazing this will be.  How I have waited a very long time to do something as adventurous as this and how I deserve it.  All this will happen as I pack and repack my backpack another 82 times.  The one thing I never waiver on taking?  A journal to record it all.