Halfway to Halfway

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:32:58 -0500
The conference ended
the way good conferences
are allowed to end:
full,
tired,
a little talked-out,
and still somehow
glad for one more table.
Aaron and I did Vegas
at a reasonable human scale,
eating,
watching Nine Fine Irishmen
do Nine Fine Irishmen things…
the kind of place
where the room seems convinced
the night can be solved
with enough dark wood and noise.
You know Aaron,
so you know that worked for us.
Or worked enough.
Then morning showed up
with absolutely no manners.
Up at 4 a.m.,
flight at 6,
Vegas still blinking
like it hadn’t been told
the night was over.
I got to DFW,
scooped Orca,
and we pointed ourselves toward Atlanta
with the kind of confidence
only a fresh tank,
a reunited dog,
and poor memory can provide.
Forty minutes later,
the road corrected us.
Two hours of slowdown,
because apparently
making good time
is one of those phrases
the universe considers a dare.
Fine.
We were only planning on Jackson today anyway.
The road didn’t need
to be conquered.
It only needed
to be handled
in pieces.
So we let it get smaller.
DFW to Jackson.
Then less than that.
Then this:
a rest stop,
somewhere along the line,
because Orca noticed
it was past dinner time
and made the executive decision
that whatever _I_ thought the schedule was…
the schedule had failed to consult management.
Hard to argue.
She’s eating.
I sit here—
with the road noise moving behind us,
not stopped, exactly…
just held for a minute
in the kind of nowhere
a trip sometimes gives you
so the day can catch up to the body.
Halfway to halfway.
Not home,
not Jackson,
not even that useful middle
of the whole damn thing.
Just the middle of the day’s smaller promise.
There are days when “enough”
has to become the official unit of measurement.
Enough sleep to make the flight.
Enough coffee to forgive 4 a.m.
Enough patience for the slowdown.
Enough road to say we moved.
Enough stopping
to keep Orca
from filing a formal complaint.
And enough thread running back to you
that even the rest stop
feels less like nowhere
than a place I can set down
one more proof:
we are on our way.
Slowly, maybe.
But on our way.
Sunday is waiting
with its own little flag
in the ground:
your half-birthday,
the World Cup final,
whatever fun the day decides
it can responsibly hold.
All roads point there first.
Then Monday,
still Monday,
still ours,
still doing that thing
where the whole map
pretends to be logistics…
when really it’s just practicing
how to bring me back within reach.
For now,
Orca’s eatin’,
Nero’s waitin’,
Jackson’s still out there
pretending to be tonight’s finish line,
and I’m here,
halfway to halfway,
learning again that coming home
isn’t one motion.
It’s a series
of smaller arrivals,
each one pointed
in the same direction:
toward Sunday,
toward Monday,
toward you.
Dfw on Bougyman's Ramblings

Halfway to Halfway
