Goin' Out To Cally – Part 61, And So It Ends…

As we pulled into Sunday’s apartment complex her face suddenly changed. The muscles that had been holding back anger and frustration and disappointment had relaxed and she was, again, beautiful.

I helped carry her massive luggage back into her apartment. We shared a long hug and we said our goodbyes. Sunday, the fourth wheel who inadvertently joined our trip, had become a source of frustration for all of us. She started out as an acquaintance and ended up being my only friend on this trip.

In an very odd way, Sunday and I had become more distant and closer at the same time.

Amongst all of the flirting and confusion and anger and miscommunication, Sunday and I had bonded in a way no one else could ever share. There is something about living through an experience that gives you an unbreakable bond. No matter how hard we could ever try to explain the journey we had just experienced it would never capture the scope of actually living through it yourself.

As we drove away and headed toward Wildwood, the last chapter of our trip was finally being written.

The back seat of the car was lighter and the foot room was available for the first time since we packed Sunday’s luggage almost three weeks earlier. However, even Sunday’s departure could not mend the great divide that had been chiseled between Tim, Beth and me.

Once we hopped onto I-75 South I watched with great anticipation as each mile marker passed, each representing a mile closer to Wildwood, a mile closer to freedom. Considering I was so anxious to get home, I was surprised a just how fast the last hour of the trip passed. Usually, when you want time to speed up, it slows down. Fortunately for me, the opposite was true.

As we pulled into the large gas station at the midpoint between Gainesville and St. Petersburg, I could see Paul waiting patiently in his small tan Toyota Tercel. Seeing Paul there was probably the closest I’ll ever get to the sense of seeing a knight in shining armor. He was my salvation, my escape, my freedom from the hell I had created by suggesting we go on this trip in the first place. He was my Get Out Of Jail Free card.

With newfound energy and focus I unloaded my belongings into the back of Paul’s car, gave a quick and rather emotionless farewell to Tim and Beth, then strapped myself into the front seat and relaxed for the first time in three days.

Tim and Beth departed one way, Paul and I in the opposite direction. It would be the last time I would see or speak to Tim or Beth for over a year.

As Paul and I merged onto the interstate he made the mistake of asking a very simple question.

“So, how was the trip?” he said.

With that simple statement the floodgates of opinion and conjecture and anger and judgment and relief and disbelief and sarcasm opened and the story spewed from me in a non-stop flow of words and exclamations and convenient revisionism.

He found the trip so funny and unbelievable that he had me recount it to my parents when I got home.

I tried to write the story down a few times earlier. Once, right after the trip was over, I tried to recount everything in pseudo-journal form, but some of it was too painful to state. One of the goals I set for myself was to get published as an author, so I thought of using this sordid tale as inspiration for a fictional account, but that attempt fizzled out as well.

It was only now, some 18 years later, because I promised myself that I would write a daily entry into this blog for a year, that I have enough distance and skill to recount the story with any sort of consistency. However, I also know that 18 years have passed. Tim, Beth and Sunday may read this story and discount or argue with some of the details and they may be right. I can only go from my memory, as broken and fragmented as it may be.

So, all of the facts may be out of order or vaguely inaccurate at times, but this is my story about my trip to Cally, through my eyes, through my memory and through my interpretation.

I can say this… that trip to Cally, for all of its flaws and pain at times, is something for which I will never regret. We were naïve and stupid and unprepared, but we did it anyway. Sure, there were bumps in the road, but the important part was that we took the journey.

I wish I could un-know a lot of what I know about life and the world and consequences. I often think if I was a little more stupid about things, I would have accomplished so much more.

And so ended the last day on our trip to Cally.