What If?

Last night - or, actually, early this morning, after drinking too much beer again with S and N and then being yelled at about Palestinian politics by M & N, god help me, we're all going to Guantanamo Bay if this keeps up, or I'll become close friends with John Walker Lindh's parents - I was lying in bed thinking about the next two months and where it's taking me. And I thought, you know, the expected thing here is that I'll find another house to rent and I'll move into it and keep on going with the life I've been leading, la la la, chaos at home and order in the workplace (okay, semi-order) and dogs and freedom fighting pyrotechnician teenage son: continue an Asheville life. Except without the yoga. And I could do that and that would be the responsible and sane thing to do.

But. But I'm about to get what is for me an extremely large chunk of change from the government. And I could add to that, because of birthday money in May and the vague possibility that I'll get at least some of my security deposit back. And I hate to blow all that money on being responsible. I mean, urgh. I may never, ever have that much money again. Hell, last week I had no idea I would be getting anywhere near this much. So, I thought, what if?

What if I put all my stuff in storage and give Django to A to take care of and Theo to my friend D, who loves him and lives up on the mountain? What if then I move to Ireland? I've always wanted to go back to Ireland. Or Holland? Or Belize or Costa Rica or New Zealand? Or a small island near Fiji? Or Toronto or Vancouver or New York? What if I throw the I Ching and ask it what to do and just leave, or invest all my money in an Airstream and go, taking odd jobs here and there, homeschooling M as best as I can (his math education would stop now, but it sort of seems to have stalled out anyway.) And then, you know, what if I fail miserably or come home with my tail between my legs? Well, what have I got to lose? And the answer to that is not much. Not really a damn thing, actually. I have never been much good at the responsible day to day daily living thing, the middle class American existence and even though I've tried and tried, let's all face it: I'm really not cut out for it somehow. And I'd rather have a wild life to look back on from my dumpster when I'm 80 than be sitting financially secure in a nice old folks home watching people die around me.

My guru therapist says that even though I keep saying I don't know what I want that I actually do, that my bones know. Well, I'm kind of thinking that maybe my bones know it's time to do something really radical. Or maybe not. Or maybe the something radical involves somebody, that's possible too.

But I'm terrified. All these choices, jesus; my bones want to go sit in the back of my closet with the shoes and giant alien dust bunnies and just shake for a while until it all goes away.