Memories at Their Expense

I woke up refreshed at 5am this morning or if I was in Florida 6am. So am I more rested since I’m an hour behind or is my body just dumb because it thinks it’s just slept for an extra hour? Regardless, it was still dark. And it was still dark while I was stuck in traffic at 7am but the light was coming up and by the time I was unstuck from traffic on a 19mile drive that took an hour to the school it was then broad daylight.

The kids were so respectful and nice. It was a minority-dominated school that I always seem to have more fun at. You here all those bad stories from schools like that, but everyone that I have been to I’ve always been treated with respect and have fun at. I think they just like the fact that I gave coffee to Jessica Alba on a regular basis. But it was a short day. I was out in 3 classes so I had the whole day to have…

…A momentary lapse of insanity. Today was expense day! At the end of every month I go through all my receipts and pray to God that they all add up. As well as not missing any. This is what I should have done on Saturday or Sunday that I procrastinated from doing. After a nice lunch from next door I start the writing, the counting, the praying. If I were smart I would do this as I go, but I don’t and wait until the end of the month when I have a plethora of little pieces of paper that I have to organize by date and time. I tape them to a white piece of paper and make an excel sheet of the date/what it was/what for/amount. It’s tedious. This time the process was a bit different. There was something special to it.

Every other receipt meant something. Having lunch at the hotel with my high school friends, that amazing sushi dinner with Brit, eating lobster on the floating restaurant in Maine and a great steak with to good ole Boys in Texas. For this one painstaking monthly moment I get to look back and remember everything I have done, seen and experienced. It’s been a good month.

I tell my students who ask what I’m doing now; I often say I’m taking a year off to focus on my own projects. I call it “me” time. I get frustrated because I haven’t made anything, or make excuses for not doing anything productive. I’m hard on myself and people around me for not putting in the effort when I have this time. I don’t have a camera so it’s too hard to find one and it would be so much easier if I did. Yet would it make any difference? Well, yes, but that’s not the point. The point is would this be the “me” time that I really need? Sure I’m poor, but I have a roof. Sure I’m a lone a lot but I have so many wonderful friends and family. Sure my job is redundant but I get to see the country. I’m like George Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life” you have to put of some things off, go through hell and back to find out you’re the wealthiest man in Bedford Falls. All of you have made me rich and breathed life into me and I love you dearly for it. I guess I’ve been chasing my dream for 31 years now and I have succeeded in some aspects, so right now in this quiet hotel room, in this moment in my life I’ve come to realize I really am getting “me” time.

Oh, my receipts all added up. I’m relieved. 27 hundred dollars of memories at their expense.

the view from my hotel