Hopelessly Seeking Happiness

Chapter 2: I Need a Vacation!

My jobs were making YouTube videos and freelance writing; I had already published a book called "The Haunting Adventures of Jack, Frank, and Danny". The book was part of a series I was working on about these three pre-teen boys going on wild adventures to the scariest places in the world and it would always take place on Halloween. The idea came from when I was little and saw Ray Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree", the names of the boys came from the imaginary friends I had when I was three, and I remember I would scare the crap out of my parents because they thought I was playing with actual ghost. Why you might ask, well cause to them Frank, Jack, and Danny were very out of the ordinary names to call your imaginary friends, to which I would answer "Would you find it less creepy if I called them Brick, Boomer, and Butch.?" Yes even back then I was a cynical twat, a very intelligent cynical twat. No I am not trying to be egoistic, I was an able child, and I could not find children my age who were cerebrally stimulating so I would create some. I stand here to testify that I was not playing with ghost children I was just bored, lonely, and even at the tender age of three found myself feeling like an outsider, so boom Jack, Frank, and Danny were born. Flash forward fifteen years later; a vivid dream would bring the boys out of retirement and into the imaginations of other kids.

Because of my jobs and the fact that I was single (insert tears here) I had no obligations, which meant I could come and go whenever I wanted and so I did. I had money coming from several directions and it was burning a hole in my pocket. I was tired of living in my town of Laredo, Texas I wanted more from life, I wanted to explore; I didn't want to be like those people who complain about where they live but yet not do anything to try to leave. I had a long talk with my parents who were cautious to let me go but I was nineteen and I had proven my accountability to take care of myself, I paid my own classes to learn how to drive, I brought my own car, I had published a book without stepping a foot in college, I was an internet sensation, I was buying my own clothes and food and necessities, and I was paying bills. I think they were more afraid of letting me go and seeing me as an adult than afraid of me not making it, even though they would never admit it, the aching of watching their children become adults is bitter-sweet, I guess to them I will always be that sarcastic little girl playing with ghost children. I hope I'm not painting this flawless picture perfect family because it was not, but that's beside the point, my parents love me and I love them, even though they are the torn on my side, I love those old people.

So there I was off exploring the depths of America, with my beat up Chevy and three friends who threw restraint to the wind and decided to join me. We started small like going around Texas at first. We went to Uvalde, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Katy, Alice, Austin, we got bored easily and wanted to expand our traveling, so we made our way to Louisiana, ate some beignets and rode in hearse through St. Louis No. 1 in New Orleans. We traveled to Mississippi, shared Texan style country music with the lovely people of Tennessee, saw an arch in Missouri (how tourist of us), we went on to taste the difference between Kansas barbeque and Texas barbeque. We would stay at these places a couple months' maybe weeks if we heard of some exciting thing happening a city or state over, and sometimes days if the places were boring or racist. My subscribers loved the idea of me moving from place to place, they enjoyed seeing new scenery as much as I, some would tell me they were living vicariously through me. I would make special contest where I would select -at random- a subscriber and send them a special souvenir from the place I was staying at. I named the contest 'Flying with spacegirl' and my black sheep appreciated the sentiment. Traveling with me meant that you could not get too comfortable with a place because my mixed up emotions would cause me to want to find some superior place to visit, these mood swings felt outlandish for my friends at first but they got used to it fast, they realized the excitement I couldn't control, and I know they felt it to. This time I wanted to go somewhere with snow and mountains, what a better place than Colorado.