Finding Myself in Mexico: Part II

     More days have gone by than I intended, based off of the work that I have completed. And by work, I do mean on myself, because who hasn’t been unemployed for the past 10 months? Right? 

    Today I find myself on the palapa of my hotel: Casa Piedra Parada, in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. This is techinically day 6 since I left my friends room in Los Angeles and jumped onto a flight to Mexico. I know, I know, we should all be staying home and isolating from the masses, I understand and I agree. But here’s the other thing to consider: I don’t have a home. I left mine and gave everything away - including my home of 10 years, spouse of 7 years, and job of 5 years - because something in me had died within that decade, and the smell was rotten. Jump to September of 2020 and I was suddenly homeless, crashing with my friend in California and wondering what the hell I was doing and what the hell I thought the outcome would be. All I knew was that somehow I had dug myself into one heck of a rut, and the walls were suddenly too big to get out from. Because of that, a thought crossed my mind: perhaps the only way out is down. So I sold most of my belongings, put the rest into a storage space and set my sails to wherever the wind might take me. (Mostly I’ve had to create the wind myself, by huffing and puffing. It hasn’t gotten me far). But now look at who I am: a pretentious Millennial who thinks the working world is no longer working, and has decided to throw all caution to the wind because he thinks he has the right to. (I wonder if the other 20-something year olds working on their computers in this palapa think the same thing? And do they know that I’m over 30?)

    In the last 6 days I’ve gotten about an average of 4 hours of sleep per night. Last night was the exception. I could hear from my room the parties that were gathering along the beach, the music getting slightly louder with each passing hour, the cars zooming by in increasing frequency. But time and exhaustion had finaly caught up to me, and I sat in bed with my eyes closing of their own free will. I managed earlier in the day to walk up-and-down my local strip about 6 times, contemplating where the best option was to sit and see the super bowl halftime show, without spending $500 pesos on 2 drinks and a crumb, and eventually sat at a bar. But that willingness to give up rolled on into the night, when I fell asleep at 9pm, and into the next morning when I awoke 12 hours later. I spent the morning tossing and turning, thinking about how I could spend the whole day in bed, what did it matter that I travelled all the way down here to see the beauty, it was my journey and I could do with it as I saw fit. That included not opening the blinds, not excersising, not eating, not showering, not writing, etc. The list went on until I recognized the signs of another spiral into depression, but it was too late. The spiralling turned into dizziness accompanied by anxiety, and soon I was pacing on the beach, feeling: fat, hopeless, destined to be subpar, unworthy of love, ridiculess for thinking I could change, afraid. Now, I wish I could say that I beat those thoughts away with the crashing waves as they pummeled my ascent into the blue-green waters, but I’ve never had it so easy. Instead, I found a way to compartmentalize the emotions and focus on one simple task of completion. Something to say: at least I did one thing. And instead of those waves pummeling away my self-doubts, they simply put me through a rinse-cycle and tossed me onto the beach, breathless. Hey, it worked. 

    Now I do feel like I should highlight a few things about what happened before I got here today. There was the prospective date I was supposed to go on with the cute taxi driver; that never happened. I was to start my trip with a set daily routine; instead I went on an all-inclusive trip and got too drunk the first few days. And I had promised to myself that I would step out of my box and try anything that makes me uncomfortable; I think the box has gotten smaller and now I’m stuck. These are all great ways to talk, or think, myself into a spiral. But never fear! Because every minute is a new one, every day can contain a new thought, a new self-affirmation, a new hope. But right now, at this moment, all my thoughts are laced with how stupid everything I’ve said before this has been. But soon, my friends, soon, I will change who I am destined to be.