Life sure has changed for Tom and I since we first walked the streets of Sayulita in February of 2012.
We ended up spending 11 bumpy months on the road in our old Pathfinder.
The roads we traversed were bumpy, but our relationship was rocky as fuck!
I didn’t much talk about my depression in my travel posts,
I didn’t really know how to talk about it.
Shit, I didn’t even really know I was depressed!
But, I was unhappy a lot of the time.
Sad for no reason.
Once the bank account started dipping uncomfortably low, I became worried and anxious, and mad.
I was mad at Tom for not being as much of a tight-ass as me.
For smoking cigarettes,
for drinking beers,
for suggesting we stay in a hotel or eat out when he knew I couldn’t resist the offer even though we shouldn’t.
Tensions had been mounting for some time, but once we reached the West coast shit really started to unravel.
We still had a lot to do (read: spend) before we crossed the border into Baja, including paying for the ferry to the mainland (over a thousand dollars if I remember correctly).
I was really stressing it all, and Tom was being his usual care-free self –
which without a doubt is the best accelerant for my flames
Our relationship was new, and had very different challenges than any other relationship we’d even been in.
We had yet to figure out the best way to communicate, comfort, or care for one another.
We pushed forward out of stubbornness.
We were supposed to travel Central and South America.
We hadn’t even made it out of the States yet.
We checked all the boxes and headed South
As soon as we crossed into Baja (arguably the most American of all of Mexico) we were slapped in the face with the reality of traveling outside of North America.
All of a sudden everything that was tough to accomplish over the last few months seemed absolutely impossible on the other side.
Toilet paper provided? HA!
You’d be lucky to even find a public toilet.
All of our lifelines stopped working too
No more free camping apps, or Yelp, we didn’t even have phone/internet service!
We should have bought a map.
2 hours later, broken, we both sat in the car on the beautiful point in La Bufadora, nursing our wounds with a piña colada we somehow managed to find in the small, mostly-closed market in the valley.
Most people wouldn’t have found life here, let alone libations
thankfully, it was the best damn piña colada I ever had too!
I couldn’t believe we were in this position.
We only had about $1,000 left in the kitty, and based on spending thus far, that wouldn’t get us through the week.
We couldn’t keep going
But, what the hell else was there??
I couldn’t accept that this was the end
I was filled with regrets, longing, anger, and sadness.
It’s hard to let my mind wander back to this time because I can still feel the raw emotion, even 6 years later
Though we sure made it look good
Luckily this was an abandoned campsite so we didn’t have to pay the $1
We spent the next 5 days at the bakery up the street, sucking the internet dry for .25 cents a day
At dinner time we’d hit up Mama Bear’s pizzeria where the owner soothed our souls with her own war stories of life
All the hours in-between I spent glued to my latest, free vice, Plants vs Zombies trying to disappear not willing to accept the failure I could so clearly see.
The moral of the story for all these expat business-owners that we met was that life unfolds as it does and ultimately, eventually, it all works out
Slightly therapeutic, but honestly I felt so hopeless at this time that I couldn’t imagine anything possibly working out for us ever
That’s not a bay BTW, it’s my collective tears cried throughout the week
Well, I guess that answers my question from the last post…
of course we all knew I was going to go off on tangents and constantly sidetrack myself in order to catch you up!
I’ll let you take a break, and then we’ll talk about Today!
Maybe…
