Nathan Pettijohn - Travels with Hafa: In Search of Ourselves

After a breakup, I always cycle through the same old playlists that remind me of different times in my life, and I eventually land on Time to Move On by Tom Petty. Then I decide to finally move on. Once I come to that song, its like Ive mourned enough with my regrets and emotions and have embraced either the excitement of moving on or the eventual necessity of it. In a breakup, its easy to feel that no one quite as amazing will ever care about you in the same ways again, and theres a sense of accruing loss from that day forward without them in your life. For some reason, the song Rich Girl by Hall & Oates always ends up on that playlist too.

A few years back I had gotten married to, and promptly divorced from, a bewitching, vibrant Argentinian woman. The American dream. She was 22 and I was 26 when we eloped in Vegas. After we split up about two years later, my friend Nic de Castro sent me a few songs that went into the breakup comeback rotation. One was Men and Coyotes by Red Shahan, and the other was Record Year by Eric Church. Both of those songs helped me come back to life and made 2018 my record year . By record year, I mean that I traveled more, wrote more and enjoyed life more. Its hard to imagine yourself on top if youre always staring at the bottom.

A little more than halfway through 2019, I had just been through another breakup, and then this road trip idea materialized. All my breakups have been my fault, in one way or another. The woman always ends up getting fed up and leaving me. Thats what happened again, and it sent me spiraling into despair. And thats what led to my wanting to get out of town, or thats what I told myself, at least. I was 31. I had been living in Los Angeles for over ten years and was having those kinds of thoughts: that my latest ex was the one Id been waiting for all that time. Now that it was over, most things seemed pointless. And many things were painful. I felt like I had nothing to lose and no reason to stay.

Getting out of the city to think about life and explore the Pacific Northwest became romanticized in my mind the more I thought about it. I had been stuck in a rut and routine that working from home just wasnt going to solve. My ex and I had been dating for about a year and broke up that August. So I spent September of 2019 reeling in that familiar self - loathing until Tom Petty started screaming at me to move on. I targeted October as the month to take a road trip. I told others that I wanted to get out of town and clear my head and find some perspective, which was all basically true.

Over the past few years Id taken several extended trips to exotic places and countries, some by myself and some with other people. But now I had a young pup that was in need of training and attention, so I focused my planning on the type of trip where he could join me. I started researching different types of motor homes and bought a large map of the United States and hung it on the wall behind my desk at home so that Id see it each day and begin to subconsciously design my route. As an American, born in Oklahoma on the Fourth of July, it seemed a shameful error that there was so much of my own country I hadnt yet seen.

On top of my headaches over the dissolved relationship, one of my neighbors had recently become a consistent pain in my ass. Id lived at my house for seven years, and she had been there for two, living above the garage in a small studio in the backyard. Suddenly, if I smoked in the backyard, shed complain. If my dog peed in the backyard, shed complain. If I sprayed disinfectant and deodorizers in the backyard to get rid of the pee smell, shed complain about that. I hate it when people complain about both the problem and the solution.

One day my neighbor came down her stairs in the backyard and Hafa ran up to her innocently to say hi, and the neighbor, panic - stricken , went, He bit my shoe.

I had watched him carefully, and he clearly had mouthed and licked her shoe, but there was no bite. Excuse me?

He made my shoe wet. She said it like she was due a serious apology.

I rolled my eyes as dramatically as I could. Okay

What made it all the more aggravating, Ill admit, is that the neighbor in question was a petite blonde Russian. And Russians, or at least the representation of their corrupt government that we tend to hear about, seem to be the embodiment of Americans natural and mortal enemy, in movies and recent election news alike. The idea of an oppressive regime sending out its brethren to the United States simply to impede my own sense of liberty offended me at my core.

I work with several friendly Russians too, who are great people, and I dont want to generalize, but this neighbor of mine was so wound up. It was as though she spent her days staring out the window into the backyard looking for reasons to be upset. Her complaints were always dramatized to an extent that youd think breaking her strict rules was the worst possible offense. She was protective and aggressive about what I could do in my own backyard. I was on the verge of putting up a suggestion box by my back door for her to simply drop in some carefully typed notes of rules and citations so that I could direct her to the box rather than having daily confrontations.

I live in Hermosa Beach, California in LA County. Hermosa is 6 miles south of the LAX airport and makes up about 2 square miles, packed densely with the homes and apartments of its 20,000 or so residents. My place is a cute classic home built about 100 years ago, a block from the beach. The community is safe and clean, with a focus on being outdoors, surfing, playing volleyball, those types of activities. Many people in my neighborhood refer to the South Bay as the bubble, since its far enough away from the craziness of the city of LA to be quiet, but close enough to be able to commute for work, meetings or events. While Santa Monica and Venice are overrun with tourists, a half - hour south in Hermosa its much calmer, cleaner and mostly locals on the beach. Its a bit less exciting than those parts of town and is what you could consider kind of vanilla.

Because I make all of my income remotely, little was stopping me from leaving towneven finances, however shaky they were at the time. Ive never been great at saving money or spending it wisely. If there is more revenue one month, Ill invest it into some other part of my business or use it toward a trip. My life doesnt require a lot of overhead, but if I need to put something on credit to make a trip happen, Im not the type to hesitate or consider future implications. I have no assets, no savings and few investments. I havent even owned a car in the last five years. Aside from my dog, I have little tying me down.