Wistful Thinking

I see a fair amount of people walking by the side of the road and on to a new life.

They are sporting back packs. Not the book bag type, but the kind you strap to your back when you are traveling. Shit, I saw a guy the other day with the whole fucking rig. You know, on an aluminum frame where the bottom is down to his ass and the top is over his head. Looked like it weighed 105 pounds.

It happens with some regularity. I have to believe these people are off on some sort of adventure. Chucking aside the life they are living and moving on towards the unknown.

How very fucking attractive.

Is it NH? That would make sense to me. NH is a nothing state. Nothing romantic or heroic about it.

Some states project excitement. Personality. Uniqueness. Romance. It is immediately evoked in their name.

Texas. California. Hawaii. Alaska.

Those are the most notable. I would also add Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma. The second list is kind of arbitrary, but overall I think the list I have put together represents states that immediately awaken an image in your mind.

Fucking NH? Massachusetts? Connecticut? Total nothingness. So maybe I see backpackers with frequency because they are fucking bored.

But I am not here to rag on NH. I am here to describe the deep feeling of longing I get in my gut when I see these people. It would be such a relief to walk away from my life. The burdens of it. The obligations. The responsibilities. And start over in an interesting place, even at a very low level. Like a one room apartment and a hot plate.

I am not saying I want to walk away from Carol, Keith and Craig. That is a ludicrous assumption. I am just talking about the feelings we all have that our life is wrong and there is an answer some where else.

Started another Reacher novel this morning. That is what kick started my impressions to life. Reacher does not live anywhere. He travels from town to town and state to state randomly, as situations develop.

He doesn't even pack. Carries nothing. He buys new clothes every couple of days and throws the old ones out. So he doesn't need to do laundry. And when people question him and ask "Isn't that an odd way to live?", he always replies "Isn't it odd to be tied down to a house and mortgage payments and routines and commitments?"

That always slays me.

Shit, man - now that I am semi-retired I spend a lot of time in this house. Alone with the cats. And I look around and think about what an anchor this thing is on our life. Especially since we are paying for it twice. Especially since we are desperate to find a path to full retirement with dignity. I am not even in love with it. It sure as hell isn't the kind of house I would have bought if my life played out intelligently.

Owning things is a drag, man. Weird thing for me to say because I really am a materialistic guy. I would amputate my left leg for the chance to own a Ferrari Testarossa. That's why I drive a Hyundai. The two are so similar.

But making payments on the things you "own" makes you subservient. You have to have a fucking job, you have to have a job that pays enough to pay the bills. Or get two jobs. Or three.

And we delude ourselves. We say we own our cars, we own our houses. Bullshit. If you are making payments on it you don't own shit. The bank owns it. And life owns you.

There is no dignity in working. The only dignity in life is in independence. Of course only 1/1,000 of 1% of us are independent. The rest swallow their pride and  sacrifice their dignity.

I despise the fact that I am "semi" retired. I will always be "semi" retired. Because I fucked up. It is on me. I didn't plan ahead, I didn't take life seriously, mostly because the life I was living wasn't my own. It was more like a bad trip on acid.

But, what the fuck, here I am. I make my escape in movies. In sports. In whiskey. In pot. In books, baby.

The only backpack I am ever going to wear is in my mind. Makes sense, ultimately. I am not a backpack kind of guy. I'd rather escape in a limo.