When The Thing Isn't The Thing...

…Marcos said, before he leaves he’d “like to go to Cattleman’s.”

Now, Cattleman’s is the place, in my opinion to get a steak in or near El Paso.

We are there after my Dad’s funeral. Marcos loved it.

For some reason, I looked it up. It would take us eight and half hours to drive there.

And why not?

Well, there was Lucy’s school schedule to contend with—-

But, oh, wait, she doesn’t teach anymore. In fact, she has no schedule. Lucy gave up teaching to raise Diego.

In that instant, I realized, our lives, right now is only limited by our finances.

In that instant, in my head, a plan started to form.

I’d always wanted to take Marcos to Carlsbad Caverns. While he was growing up, that was on my bucket list, but I never got to it.

Well, how about now?

Then Lucy mentioned she wanted to go to Roswell, New Mexico.

And I’m like, why the hell not?

And then there’s the Stair case in Larento in Santa Fe?

I’ve heard about it, never thought I’d see in this lifetime, and Saint Joseph would tell how he built it when I got up there -- if I made it.

But hell, why not see it now.

And so today, writing about this, maybe, just maybe I can take this day where nothing really happened, in terms of just waking up and being with Diego, that something significant happened.

The trip isn’t the thing.

It’s the freedom that Lucy and I have created to do the thing.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what I’ve been working for all my life.