“Hey coach,” my friend said with a fucking smirk on her face. I was making my way to the main office after fixing a potentially expensive error on one of the school’s servers, so I was feeling both relieved and stressed when I saw her, and I rolled my eyes and smiled. “You’ll do good,” she said, and right on cue, the group of middle school boys began walking down the hall and toward the cafeteria. It was lunch time, but what I needed was an ice cold beer, but seeing these kids again and even my friends was enough of a salve for my frayed nerves.

The night before, the school board hired me to be the assistant middle school football coach. I have never coached anything in my life, but last month I mentioned it somewhat offhandedly that I wanted to coach something during this upcoming school year, and I believe that once I put something out into the Universe, the Universe listens and answers back. I’m now a football coach and first practice is on Monday.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but I believe I’ll have fun. And when the people around me tell me that I’ll do a good job, I have to listen and believe them, right? So let’s go.

On my way home from work on Friday, I saw the battery light on my dash turn on. My car drove fine, so I drove it home. I later did some research on what it could mean and what I could do. On Saturday, I removed the battery cover and checked the wires, making sure nothing looked frayed, and I checked the battery connectors, making sure those didn’t look corroded or anything. Everything looked fine, at least to my untrained eyes. I drove to work on Monday with the light on, and I drove back home after work with the light on, and everything seemed fine. This morning I took my car into Les Schwab and asked them to test my battery. They told me my battery was fine.

My alternator, though, wasn’t.

I had planned to leave on my road trip at the end of next week, and the soonest I can take my car into the shop is this coming Monday. I’m hopeful everything will turn out fine, that I’ll get my alternator replaced, that I can take my car on a planned 3,500 to 4,000 mile road trip next week, but there’s always that little buzzing at the back of my head when something like this happens, when the Universe looks at my plans and just laughs. I’m grateful I have good friends that have answered my pleas for help. I had to take work off today, but a friend of mine will be able to drive me to work this week, and I am forever grateful for her help.

For now, my beloved Jeep will sit quietly in the lot until Monday, and all I can do is hope for the best.

A lazy day at home. Earlier this week, I received this poster by Anderson Design Group, and I’d been looking at it on and off today. For a big part of my adult life, when I thought of traveling, I always thought of traveling overseas: Europe, Asia, Australia. During my road trip in April, however, I realized how much of America I haven’t seen and how much of it I want to see. So I bought this poster to remind me to explore America. On the wall facing this poster, I have more posters by Anderson Design Group that, in a way, tell my story. In order, I have city posters from San Diego, Los Angeles, Montana, Seattle, and Portland.

I now want to go east, and I think I settled on when: the first week of August. I don’t want to be around when my town hosts their annual Pioneer Days event; instead, I want to be on my way toward Chicago. I miss cities, and that feeling only intensified when I visited Seattle and Portland earlier this year. I’ve always wanted to visit Chicago, so that’s where I hope to be in a few weeks time. I’m not much of a planner, so the only thing I have to do next is to fill out my leave form at work. After that, who knows. I’ll hit the open road and see where the road takes me.

On my way home from work, I decided to pull off and head toward the reservoir. I felt like I hadn’t been here for a while, but apparently, the last time I was here was last year on this exact same day. I went early in the morning then, and I went during the middle of the day today when temps were in the mid 90s. It was hot, but it was beautiful, and after I took some shots with my camera, I drove back onto the highway and made my way back home. After a few minutes, though, I had to pull off again.

I grabbed my notebook and began to write my feelings about what I had just experienced. What struck me the most was how decisive and nonchalant I was about this mini excursion. I had written about my anxiety before, and I thought of this again as I appreciated how far I’ve come over the years. I remember how tough it used to be for me to even get out of the house sometimes, and now I crave adventure.

I mentioned yesterday about the road trip through the Pacific Northwest I took in April, and I’m planning to head east sometime at the end of July or early August, and if the me of four years ago saw the me of now, I believe he would be proud. I am proud of how far I’ve come, and I am truly very excited to see what’s next.

Here’s to my next adventure.