So, was chatting with an old friend the other day, catching up on lives, what we've got going on, etc.
This friend's a great guy for catching up. Good sense of humor, wicked sharp and quick.
Was telling me that he had a weekend getaway adventure coming up, with just he and his wife.
They're going to a hotel in a bigger city.
What's on the itinerary?
Eating, talking. Probably sometimes both at the same time.
Man, that sounded pretty nice. Not high on the adventure meter, but well earned for them.
Told him of my at-the-time unformed plans for a couple of days in Los Angeles, just around the corner. The at-the-time unformed part was weighing on me a bit. I was... fretting.
One of my many goals for the new year is to fret less often, and I was off to a rocky start.
Biggest fret was uncertainty of where I'd be "crashing".
My friend, who knows this first hand more than anyone else I know, opined that this uncertainty was part of the romance, 25+ years ago, when you're doing it by design. If you walk all night or catch a nap on a park bench somewhere in Europe because the random just didn't pan out that day... what a great adventure, a great story, a great memory......
But if it's NOT part of the plan....
Crashing. A word that meant a lot more, 25 years ago. A corner, a couch, a spare blanket... that was all that was needed. It was the place you laid your head, gently or otherwise, at the end of your night. And you frequently didn't know where that would be, until you realized it was the end of the night, and looked around.....
Dude, don't sweat it. you can crash on my couch. Here's a spare pillow.
If you were lucky, there might even have been an old blanket available.
My favorite was a dilapidated fold out love seat in my buddy Neil's basement. I used it frequently enough that I should have had a drawer there for a change of clothes and a toothbrush.... If your weight was too far toward the head of it, you'd flip the whole thing up like a teeter totter.
That's value added, right there.
Most of us, at this point in our adult lives (unless you're one my younger readers. Or the ONE younger reader....), might still use the word without thinking about it, but we're not as interested in crashing. We've oftentimes others who will be needing to crash, too. Spouse. kids.....
Now, in word or not, we're asking to "Stay".
"Can we stay at your place?" You ask, usually of someone who's home is a home now, and not just a convenient place for falling asleep and putting your shit.
"Of course!" might be the answer, as the person begins mentally shuffling their family members around and thinking about towels and bedding.
I've got absolutely no problem with doing it this way now. I've worked hard to elevate my own level of existence over the last 25 years, to where I'm used to NOT sleeping on a floor. And I know my friends have all done the same. I don't need turn down service, but embrace the bougie-ness of not sleeping in a car.
But there's something lost in this middle aged need for comfort and stability and making sure your people are taken care of. The "Fuck it" is kind of gone. What constitutes "the adventure" is more and more just the stuff you plan to do "when you get there". Instead of... the getting there.
Probably went away incrementally.
Started with that one night where you found yourself driving at midnight still, further and further north in Wisconsin, because of two plus hours of no vacancies, each fruitless exit making you picture hitting the MN north shore after being up for 28 hours straight, until you luck into the very last room at some random place so far away from everywhere that it must exist only to cater to... people like us. Oh, and you got that very last room because you decided NOT to hold the door for the folks who pulled in right behind you. Lack of courtesy wins! You get the key, and turn around, and see the dozen folks who have been going through the exact same thing. A lobby full of dumb asses who are re-thinking their "Fuck it".
Then a bit more "Fuck it" melts away when you find that the hotel you reserved weeks ago, normally NOT full this time of year, is packed to the gills because some local issue with army reserve facilities, and that every other hotel that's not terrible in all of Blytheville, AR is similarly full up.
Know what's near Blytheville, AR, my friends? NOTHING. just 80 minutes more interstate to a major city that's known for domestic abuse and vehicular homicide, and another couple hours further to... the next place down the road....
And then there was the time you tried finding two hotel rooms in the middle of nowhere during spring break, and the first 10 places you looked at were sold out because it's the middle of nowhere where everyone stops on their way to and from.. .spring break.
And "fuck it" becomes "Fuck that" and you decide it's better to fret, going forward.
But, with the assurance from my buddy in L.A. that one way or the other, I will not get shanked by a homeless person for stealing their bench... I've chucked fretting.
This time.
It's part of the adventure. The likes of which I've not had the good fortune to have in far too long.
And I'm looking forward to it.
