new mexico – part I

It was June of 1999 and my girlfriend and I were getting ready to go on vacation. At that time we had been together a little over 6 years. We were flying out to Albuquerque, NM renting an SUV and driving up to Durango, Co via Santa Fe and Taos. We were taking camping equipment and hoped to camp most of the way.

This was a trip we were supposed to take in 1996. Literally, two weeks prior to that trip my lung collapsed and later I had to have surgery because it kept collapsing on it’s own. After the surgery I was very sick. The recovery process was long, painful and frustrating. I think this is the reason why I can relate to Joey so much. But, that surgery thing is a whole other story I will tell later.

 

Prior to us leaving for this trip my mother was very ill. She had been hospitalized and no one seemed to know what was wrong with her. So I thought. I had been home in May to see her and she was fine and then shortly after she became ill. The week we were to leave I could not reach any of my family members by phone. I finally was able to reach my sister and she sounded strange. I said, “Out with it!” I knew something was up. She started sobbing into the phone that Mom’s breast cancer was back and that it had metastasized into her liver, lungs and brain. That this is why she had been so ill. They had been keeping this information from me and didn’t want me to know until I got back from my trip.  This wasn’t the first time they had kept things from me about my mother’s health. (She previously had a lumpectomy without me knowing until months later.

I would never trust them again after this.

 

Hanging up the phone I relayed the information to my girlfriend and told her that I didn’t think I should go on this trip. She was shaking her head no – no not go but no you cannot back out on me again she said. That it was my fault that we didn’t go on the previous trip because of my lung and if I didn’t suck it up and go this time then we were breaking up.

 

I should have told her not to let the door hit her in the ass on the way out.

 

You know how everyone always has regrets? Things they think about and wish they ‘d done differently? Thinking back on this I regret I never told her to fuck off right then and there. I went on that trip instead and was miserable almost the whole time. Each day I would call my mother in the hospital and talk to her but never very long because she was so sick she had a hard time talking. I honestly didn’t think she’d make it until I got back. And, I prayed – as much as it were possible for a non-religious person to – that she make it until I got back.

 

Pulling in to Santa Fe there was a festival downtown on the square. Local artists mostly Native Americans, were showing jewelry. I separated from my girlfriend to go look at things and to just get away from her. We planned to meet up at a beer joint on the edge of town. As I picked up a piece of silver jewelry that had a hand with a swirl in the middle of it the woman who was showing it grabbed my hand. At first I thought she thought I was going to steel it and that’s why she grabbed me. But, she only wanted to read my palm. After studying the lines on my hand she looked up and said that I was in for a very big journey as she let my hand go. I didn’t want to believe her. I wanted to say “There is no journey. My mother is going to be just fine and this is all a bad dream.” I wanted to say that but I bought the necklace instead. I still have it, too. I never wear it because it reminds me of that time.

 

Later, as I wondered around town it started to rain. I decided to make a run for this place to meet gf. As I opened the door everyone stopped talking looked up. Dripping wet, I walked in and sat down. All the women in the place were wearing western belts with buckles the size of dinner plates and sleeveless shirts with pearl buttons.

 

I felt like I was in heaven!

 

I sat there at the bar and spoke to a local cowboy on one side and a woman on the other side who had just started a ranch outside of town. Since I grew up on a farm and raised cattle we found we had a lot in common. That was the only time during that trip I forgot my worry over my mother and my anger at my gf.

 

Our SUV had a major tire failure between Santa Fe and Taos and left us stranded in the desert for three hours until the rental company could send someone out with a spare tire as the explorer they rented us did not have one. It was then that I started having thoughts of just walking away and going back home. But how? We were out in the middle of nowhere.

There was no way out.

 

Pulling in to Durango I told gf that I wasn’t camping that night and headed to a hole in the wall the edge of town. Once inside the room I called my mother and she was worse than ever. After hanging up I started crying. My gf turned to me and told me that if I didn’t stop calling home and making myself upset then I was never going to have any fun on this trip.

 

Regret #2 is that Durango, CO had no airport to get the hell out of there because I would have right then and there. Looking at those walls in that cheap motel I felt something snap inside of me and made myself keep looking at those blank, bland walls because I knew if I looked at my gf I would not trust what I would have done next – to her – for saying that. To this day I am thankful I didn’t because I feel sure that I would have been in jail. Three lives would have ended that summer instead of just one.

 

The next day we went out to Chaco Canyon to tour the ruins and to camp. I remember being numb the whole time and barely taking anything in except the fact that my mother was indeed going to die and by the time we left I knew it was going to happen and soon.

 

I had never been so glad to get back home from a vacation in my life. My mother died two months later along with my relationship. I regretted a lot of things by then –

 

-but never that breakup.

To be continued.