The Journey

As she walked in everything felt familiar, even though she had never been to this dinner before, or this town for that matter. She had been on a sort of a pilgrimage of her own making for the past four or so days, it was hard to remember as the days blurred together at this point.

Just Stacey and her motorcycle traveling from Portland to wherever she decided to end up. So far her travels brought her south from Oregon to Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and now somehow she ended up in South Texas in this vintage dinner that seemed perfectly placed in this small town of Beeville.

Stacey was conventionally beautiful. She was 5'8", had blonde hair that was cut in to a hard bob and jutted past her jawline. Her face was framed with big beautiful blue eyes and an infectious smile topped off with an "edgy" nose piercing that her older sister said that she wasn't cool enough to pull off. Here she was on her 36th birthday searching for something.

Stacey wasn't married like she thought that she would be. There was no serious boyfriend or kids to go home to. She had a great career, but not one that excited her. Five days ago she decided that she needed a change even though she had no idea what that would entail. She sold most of her furniture on craigslist and she was able to have her sister move in to her house all in one day. She was burnt out. She didn't bother with a two week notice, she couldn't stand to be there for two more days let alone two weeks.

On a Wednesday morning Stacey hopped on her motorcycle with just what she could fit in her saddle bags and left Portland, for good she hoped. What would this new year and new adventure bring? She didn't know, but for the first time, in a long time, she was excited about the prospect of a new adventure.

Here sitting inside of this dimly lit, dank dinner at 3 am she felt hopeful. As her waitress, Debbie (she didn’t ask, but Debbie was very friendly and gave her her life story somewhere between Stacey ordering a cheeseburger and a jack and coke) brought out her food Stacey noticed how obliviously happy she was. Working here, in this dated diner filled with round stationary barstools and red and white (yellowed with age) booths, serving up greasy diner food to people passing through town in the middle of the night.

Stacey was suddenly equal parts fascinated and jealous that someone could be so happy with what seemed to be such a mundane life. Maybe there was something to be said for being happy in a place like this. Maybe if Debbie could be happy here, so could Stacey? It was worth a shot… or at least it had been a long day of driving and Stacey was feeling the jack and coke so it seemed like a good idea? Maybe? Stacey was tired of thinking, tired of driving, tired of being conventionally beautiful but perpetually single. From this point forward she made a pact with herself, she was going to think positively and work on being open to new experiences and new people.

Whatever it was that she was doing in her old life wasn’t getting her where she wanted or needed to be and at the end of the day what she needed most was to be happy even if that meant being blissfully unaware, like Debbie. Her journey forward wasn’t going to be a journey backward.