The Drive to Visit

There are days when I really have to fight the "stay at home" instinct whenever opportunities to leave my apt.
Where I have to fight to convince myself that going out and meeting up with people is actually something I want to do.

To start off.
My cousin was in town. He's from out of state, and I see him like....once every couple of years or so.
So definitely not somebody I can just drop in randomly on.

But it seemed like we weren't going to be able to meet up.
For a variety of reasons.
First. The fact that he was in a different city.
Second. the fact that he couldn't obtain a car to drive down to see me.

But then he brought up the concept of me driving up to see him.

Which.....
I was conflicted about.

Me? Drive up to see him?
Selfishly I was like "why do I always have to do the driving to see people?"
Because it literally feels like I do. I'm the one who goes to others, they don't often if at all come to me.
I mean, that was gas money.
It was gas. And considering I was trying to not spend money until payday....
and the fact that my tank was just under half full.
And that the distance to his place and back to mine would basically drain my tank....

Left me seeing this as...much more effort than I wanted it to be.
So, the 'stay at home' part of me won.
And I was like "I don't think I can make it."

But he was like. ()_() "But why not?!?!"

Which left my satisfied self....feeling guilty.

I mean, this is my cousin, someone who I don't see everyday.
Why not go see him?

I truthfully answered. "Well....it's the cost of gas, and the timing of it all."
Because usually if I try to force something to happen....then it ends up being more stressful than fun in the long run and I end up with a headache from it all.

But he was persistent.
Saying "Well, I was hoping we could meet up in the evening, maybe grab some ice cream."

Which....
Was surprising.
That someone was actually planning on things to do when we met up.
That they were actually wanting to meet up if only for a little while.

So I considered my gas tank....
Decided that I could at least make it up and down, and resigned myself to having to buy gas today instead of tomorrow...
Which with all the driving I've done around the past month or so....I feel like I've been going through a tank a week, when it used to last me a month. *sighs*
But hey.
It was my cousin!
From out of state!

Come on Sarnic! Stop being a homebody and go see Him!

So. It was decided to go see him after I got off work.

Ah.
Plans.
They go awry so easily.

It started with me getting off of work a bit late.
I mean, that's unsurprising but frustrating as work had been slightly...stressful.
But it still gave me enough time to go home and take a nap. So I could recharge a bit. It would be good to keep me from getting that headache.
So I thought.
I came home, went straight to bed, with my alarm set....
and woke up 10 minutes later than I'd planned.
Ugh. As I forgot to set my alarm from AM to PM.
So the alarm didn't go off.
Which was bad, as I was supposed to wake up and head straight to my car and go.
So I was 10 minutes late.

Another problem.
Was that I'd checked the gps earlier in the day, and thought that the drive to his place was only half an hour away.
But when I replugged it into the GPS...It's estimated traveling time had changed!! Doubling to an hour!!
So instead of being like ten minutes late.
I was going to be 45 minutes late! Gah!

I didn't think it would be too bad....originally he'd said between 430-5pm and I'd be arriving 15 minutes past that window.

But then he dropped the bombshell.
He had another thing planned after he met up with me.

-Understandable trying to squish as many people meet ups together in one day as possible, especially when you're only there for a week.
He'd already had lunch with our Grandma before meeting up with me, so having him meet up with someone later wasn't surprising to me. :)
As he'd asked me how long I planned to hang out and I'd -to be on the safe side- had said a couple of hours. Just in case we didn't really click or something was my thinking. So I wouldn't plan to spend the whole evening with him if our meetup didn't go as well.

So now...
I'd just shortened our time together by like an hour.... :S oops.

To top it off.
*sighs*
It was rush hour.
I always forget about rush hour.
Honestly how can we still have traffic jams with all the advances in society/techonology today??

But!
Thankfully they were minor slow downs.
And I made it to meet my cous!

I'm really glad I was able to meet up with him. :)
We ended up having a great time!
Eating ice cream, chatting, realizing that we think similarly and enjoying the fact that we have things in common lol.

I really wish I was able to spend a bit longer with him. :(

Plus he was a real gentleman. lol :) paying for my ice cream, and offering to pay for my gas. So sweet of him!

Though I ended up using less gas than I thought I would.
So I didn't think to stop to top off.
So I just called the ice cream even. :) lol.

Ah.
It was a great way to spend the evening. :)

Even though I did end up with a headache. *shakes head*
I blame more the fact that I hadn't eaten much more than anything else. That and irritation at all the slow tall vehicles I got stuck behind. But.
It was totally worth it to see my cousin and have a great time with him. :)

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi