Walkabout

Last week, I took a trip to my familial homeland. It’s a place that much like Rodney Dangerfield, doesn’t get any respect. I respect it though, and it will always have a place in my heart. So much, that I have it tattooed on my body.

Keep it easy on the gas ’round these parts or Joe P Law will make you pay

I didn’t have many reasons to go, I just needed a break. I felt as if I was sinking deeper and deeper into a depression. Nothing that I tried would get me out of it. I knew this would.

The one reason I went however, was to give my uncle the driver’s seat out of dad’s IROC. It was ripped on the edge, and trust is more important than anything else to me on this car. I trust the man with my life, and I trust him with dad’s car. After looking it over, he believed the best route would be to completely replace the seat covers with new ones. Something I didn’t want to do, but his experience is trusted and valued. So I bought new seat covers for the front seats, a $600 expense I wasn’t expecting. They will be custom made and sent directly to him. Where I will then come back in a few weeks with my other seat to have brand new seat covers on the front seats.

I spent some wonderful 1:1 time with my 3 beautiful aunts, all of which I love and adore. They feel like the only family I have left sometimes.

I then went on a mission. Something I had thought about but never attempted. I went to Tahlequah, marched into the Cherokee Nation headquarters and asked what it would take for me to become a member. The staff was wonderful and very helpful. I knew my great-grandmother was on the Dawes Roll, which is the requirement for entry. They told me that I actually could enter via my grandfather. I just needed his death/birth certificate, the same for my father and my birth certificate.

One of my aunts provided me with my grandfather’s death certificate. Another gave me a copy of his birth certificate. When I returned home, I ordered a death certificate for my father and birth certificate for myself. Now I wait.

I felt refreshed and ready to take on the world, my trip was over. But why stop the adventure there? I decided to take a route home that I had never taken before. I decided to take a southern route via I-40 to Memphis, where I visited a place of eternal rest.

The most peaceful and calming cemetery I had ever been to.

It was a rash decision, based on my happenstance. An author who appeared in Ken Burns’ Civil War is buried there. His colorful and vivid oratory sparked interest in the subject for me from an early age. I felt it was a duty to pay my respects and thank him in the best way I knew how, for the gift he provided me as a young boy.

I’ve never been a big reader unfortunately, and had never read any of his works. I just purchased one of his novels and can’t wait to read it. If his writing skills were as good as his vocal ones, I know I will love it.

I’m back home now, where my amazing girlfriend missed me. I missed her as well. I’m finding my soul to be as complex as it is empty at times. I need quiet reflection. I need times completely alone and quiet, and I need ways to escape the mental anguish I continue to face. I accomplished that during this trip.

Now to begin a period of financial self restraint, which I’ve never been that good with.

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