So I’m jetting back to Phoenix after a week in Massachusetts which, looking back from my 39K-foot vantage point, turned out to be a very nice and much-needed diversion from all the stuff that I left a week ago – stuff that, I’m certain, sits in the very same place I left it on my dining room table, waiting to be worked on upon my return.

I guess it’s always a good thing to experience once again just how much doing simple things with friends and family who live some 2K miles away from Ground Zero can help recharge the batteries both mentally and physically. My Goodboys friends Ben, Killer, and Doggy Duval have their own lives and perspectives, and therefore their own way of looking me straight in the eye and say, to effect, cut the bullshit and stop taking everything so seriously, and, in effect, to get a life. My friend Paul hasn’t changed in the thirty years we’ve known each other; his Waltham, Massachusetts world-view allows me the space to blow off steam over Italian food and a glass or two of Chianti. He’s always been great in that way. And then there’s my Dad, who has had to work through all the stuff anyone who has lost his mate of 60+ years would have to. Just being around him and talking about life, family, and politics, and where the next steps in his life might take him, is a calming influence.

It all makes me realize one can get so absorbed in all the daily life going on in and around you that you forget that there are others who love you and care about you and are just a call or a text away. I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have friends and family like that! And it’s not a one-way street by any means: if any of them needed me for any reason I’d be there for them, and as Donald Trump would say, “bigly”.

Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel within a great restlessness and desire to grow spiritually in directions I haven’t considered before. It doesn’t change the fact that, even with all the best friends and family around you, someone can still feel not of the world they are living out their existence in. It’s the great Peggy Lee question we all find ourselves asking at one point or another: is that all there is.

All that being said, it’s still reassuring to know that there are those I love and cherish who are there for a reality check whenever it is needed. Look, this is nothing unusual for someone of my age: I’ve done a lot of things in my life most folks on this earth could only dream of doing; but there comes a point where you just have to look at who you are and what you are, and what do you really want to get out of life at this stage.

When I find that out I’ll let y’all know.