Estoy Cansado, Jefe

I’m tired, boss

Nick and I use an app called Pegboard while we are traveling to play cribbage. We have the app on both of our phones and our iPad and are able to track our wins. We have logged over 150 games in the past 3 months. So if you ask us what we have really been up to in South America…. It’s that. We’ve played so much cribbage that we know the value of virtually every single hand. We know the tricks of what to put in your crib to maximize potential points. We know the risk of playing a pair during the counting portion of the game as your opponent might score six points on you. Despite all this knowledge, this game honestly comes down to luck, with our scores hitting almost 50/50. Sometimes one of us will go on a winning streaking, getting double-double runs, or 15’s up the wazoo (if you don’t know cribbage this paragraph might be confusing, but I am not here to teach. As Elle Woods once said, I have a point I promise.) And sometimes you are scraping together a 4 point hand time and time again. When this happens, I often sigh say to Nick: “I’m working so hard.” I know, ironic considering the 3-month vacation.

But it’s morphed into a phrase meaning I am cobbling shit together and its tiring, man! And that is a little bit of the theme of this trip. As we have entered the last leg of our travels, making our way to Valparaiso, Chile, to Santiago, to our final stop of Medellin, Colombia, traveling with our giant bags and switching lodging every four nights has been exhilarating and exhausting. I know, boohoo. But this type of travel isn’t for the faint of heart! (It’s me, the faint of heart.)

On our 7^th game of the day at a little café in Santiago, Chile, I was working so hard. Not even a pair in sight. During this game, Nick taught me the phrase, “Estoy cansado, jefe,” or, “I’m tired, boss.” Originally a quote from The Green Mile, this line feels all-encompassing as we have our final fun in the sun before returning home, to real life, even to snow (forecasted for next Monday, are you kidding me.) Trying to enjoy our last blissful moments and not focus on having to adjust back to domestic life, to find a job, to see all my friends and family I have been missing while simultaneously trying not to spend a single penny, I feel tired, boss.

But life, like cribbage, is made up of both strategic choices and a whole lotta luck. And how lucky it is to be tired.