I booked this vacation 8 months ago, though it wasn’t until about a week ago that I started to really think about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come, more that I had so much else going on each day that I didn’t have time to think about it. I kept telling myself that I had to focus on the next deliverable, the next shift at my second job, the next time commitment I had made. I do this, keep myself overly busy, and I always have. Although when I was younger I was busy because there were so many different things I wanted to be doing: cheerleading, drama club, ska shows, watching Clerks and playing UNO with Ross, softball, bowling team, shifts at the Treat ‘n Eat. Now, though, I pack my iCal mostly in an attempt – and I swear I’ll never have a more honest moment in my life when I say this – to keep my thoughts away from how unhappy I am. And to avoid thinking of him. 

I arrived in Mexico yesterday, and the weather was everything I love: sunny and blue-skied and warm. Within a couple of hours, though, the clouds rolled in and by the time I reached my resort the area was drenched with rainfall. It didn’t last too long, luckily, and it had cleared up by the time I had checked in to my hotel. Then I got to my room – maybe around 8:30? it was already dark outside – and I settled a little and looked around the one bedroom suite…and I burst into tears. 

I felt a choking loneliness wash over me and I almost crawled right into bed despite the early evening hour. I stood there thinking about how earlier that day I told my older brother that I was “done with Maryland” and that my next plan is to move to London. How could I be so naive as to think that I can pick up and move to a foreign country, when I can’t even seem to handle the prospect of a night alone in one?! Yeah, I’ve done it before, (twice actually), but I suppose I was young enough to still have hope that things would be better in the new place. Perhaps then I didn’t even know I was running from something instead of to something. 

Dredging up enough self-shame at the thought of going to bed right away, I changed my clothes and grabbed my resort map and I was off. (If nothing else, fat chicks do not skip dinner, and this one hadn’t eaten since she was on the plane.) I walked along the wooden path towards the pool, not passing anyone, occasionally slipping on the still-wet trail under my $1 Old Navy flip flops, letting my tears fall freely. It wasn’t until I came to the nearly-deserted pool and the music notes from my past reached my ears that I stopped wallowing and began to notice what was around me. The lit pool – rather, pools, and a labyrinth of them at that – were beautiful against the surrounding night. And Celia Cruz’s voice singing “no hay que llorar, que la vida en un carnaval y es mas bello vivir cantando” pulled me back to a time that will forever hold a place in my heart.

I didn’t make it to the self-proclaimed “MiniClub” (yes, that’s what the sign said. Adorable, these Mexicans.) until long after Celia stopped her raspy belting (see above comment about the labyrinth), but I was in time to hear the announcement that this was the last song of the evening; the ongoing salsa lessons were about to end. I joined in immediately – having learned to dance in the streets of Maracaibo, and later having taken about a year’s worth of ballroom dance lessons, I was not too self-conscious to dance alone.

I was euphoric for about two minutes. By the end of the song, the balls of my bare feet were torn up from the concrete and the muscles from my lower back down to my outer ankles were screaming for me to remember why I gave up the ballroom dancing to begin with. It’s a miracle I was able to hear over the scolding in my mind to pick up the sound of crashing waves nearby. I found the Caribbean…and I cried again.

…it’s been almost 24 hours, and waiting for my girlfriends to arrive has been rough. I feel guilty that I’ve been unable to ignore the loneliness and just ENJOY this place, while also knowing that in a few days I’ll be seeking a little solitude, as introverts tend to do, and I’m also feeling guilty about that. Something’s got to change in my life – maybe a boatload of somethings – but I don’t know where to begin. Running off to London is not the answer, and if I’m frank, it’s not in my budget these days either. Regardless, first things first: my girls will be walking through the door any minute now, and the fat chick’s hungry.