CAMPSITE STORIES: A Retired Camper:
“I didn’t wait for anything. I just ran.” The minute things got comfortable, a good job, a steady neighborhood, friends who knew me, I got the itch. Thought the grass was greener over the next hill. Moved to different cities five times before I was forty. Dragged the wife and kids away from everyone they knew.
He goes on to say…
Cost me my first marriage. And worse, I spent so much time chasing horizons that I never really put down roots. Now I look around, and everybody I grew up with has history. Decades of camping in the same place. Retired old folks who know the story of their lives just by looking out their kitchen window. I’m just a collection of addresses.
God, I was so stubborn. Me and my sister didn’t speak for twelve years over something so stupid. Who said what at a Thanksgiving dinner. Both of us were too proud to pick up the phone. We figured the other one owed the apology. And then she had that stroke. By the time I got to the hospital, she was unconscious, she’s still in a coma. Twelve years of birthdays, holidays, just sitting on the shelf because I wanted to be right all the time. You don’t get those years back. I just have to live with the empty chair.