Yesterday I spent the day with my great-aunt and great-uncle in California, then drove from 8:30 last night to 11:00 this morning back to Albuquerque, where I am now. Talk about being tired. Fourteen and a half freaking hours on the road. I saw the sun set AND rise. When I got here, I brought in my luggage then crashed hard until my not-so-quiet (but extremely beautiful) nephews woke me up around three this afternoon. Now it’s 10:00 in the evening, and I’m just okay, basically functional. As I’d still like to shower and finish reading a book that belongs to my sister’s local library (and which I started this afternoon), I need to keep this short.

Tomorrow morning my parents, my aunt, and I leave to go back to Oklahoma City (and then Arkansas the next day). Honestly, I love traveling but am weary of the road. Last night’s trip alone was 900 miles, and everything from Arkansas to California is starting to blur together. I’ve listened to more songs and more podcasts than I can stand. Also, I apparently left my phone charger in California, a fact that I hate. I normally have my shit more together, but–hell–it was a LONG weekend. These things happen.

They make more chargers, Marcus.

All that being said, I wouldn’t trade the time on the road. Even if I could go back and get a plane ticket for the dance event in California, I wouldn’t do it. Obviously, the driving has given me a lot of time to process and think–time to be alone–and this has been a good thing. Plus, I was able to see my relatives. Even driving out here with my parents and my aunt has been good. Just off seeing my great-aunt, whom I haven’t seen in 25 years, reminds me that our time together is limited. Last week after I posted about my dad farting in my car on the way out here, my friend Chelsea (whose father is no longer alive), said, “I would pay every dime I will ever earn to get one more ridiculous car trip.”

So let’s be clear about what’s important.

To me, it’s family and kindness, not phone chargers–although my hyper-organized, anal-retentive self often forgets this. Honestly, it’s sort-of better, sort-of worse since the estate sale and becoming a minimalist. On one hand I think, It’s just one more thing to let go of, Marcus. On the other I think, But I have so little now. I don’t want to lose anything else. Byron Katie says, “You don’t get to keep anything.” To me this means that when we die–sometimes even before that–we lose it all–possessions, relationships, even memories. So we have to make peace with where we are in this moment. Like, it has to be ENOUGH that I’m sitting here on a couch absolutely exhausted and that I’m no longer the owner of a phone charger, since–right here, right now–this IS my life.

And yes.

Right here, right now.

It’s enough.

I’m enough.