Nothing Lasts Forever
I found myself in a roadhouse in a town that has the cheek to call itself Carefree.
The bartender was smoking hot — but more than that, she was sharp, funny, and genuinely good to talk to. That, in the end, was the more important fact.
At the bar, right in front of me, a dollar bill was pinned to the wood. In black marker, it read:
“Nothing lasts forever.”
Aye, no shit.
I sat there thinking about how this restless life of mine fucks me over sometimes and how I haven’t actually lived anywhere for longer than a few months since I've left Playa del Carmen in late April 2022.
Just as that thought looped in my head, the guy with a guitar started singing. The lyric was technically:
“Oooh, what a lucky man he was…” (Emerson, Lake and Palmer)
But what I heard was:
“Oooh, what a lucky man you are…”
And that made all the difference.
Here I was, brooding over belonging, while sitting in a free seat, in a free life, under a desert sky. Lucky enough to not be rotting in some office. Lucky enough to still be in the game, even if the rules keep changing.
And just when I thought the universe had finished taking the piss, the jukebox played AFI’s Death of the Seasons. I didn’t even need the lyrics — just the headline was enough.
Because that was the truth, pinned to a bar in Carefree: seasons end. Projects end. People fade. Even the good times don’t last forever.
But neither do the bad.
And then, out of nowhere, my own head supplied the closing track: a line from Incubus that came uninvited, but perfectly on cue:
“Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there / With open arms and open eyes, yeah.”
It was like the universe had handed me a four-song mixtape in the middle of the Arizona desert.
It reminded me that I chose this! It reminded me that just a few years ago, I was living in a country I didn't like, commuting to a job 5 days out of 7, suffering from extreme eczema and panic attacks — and that this reality is a foxin' blessing!
The question that remains is this:
Did I keep moving out of sheer convenience or because I wanted to?
There is definitely something to be said about that gypsy lifestyle — about leaving one hotel room behind and having others clean up after you. Not because you're an asshole or a descendant of Genghis Khan, but because it's their goddamn job! Yay, capitalism!
Well, I guess if I would have been better at “Yay, capitalism!” and at creating a stable income over the last few years, things would have been more fun. But then again, if you choose to live a lifestyle that goes against the norm, you have to deal with shit outside the norm. And if that journey is your very own tool for self-discovery, things tend to get even more difficult.
In the end, all that matters is this:
In a bar in Carefree, AZ, a dollar bill nailed to the bar already told me everything I needed to know:
Nothing lasts forever.
