Cry Baby Cry

I'll say it again, as another preface. Mexico City is the hardest city I’ve ever lived in. The way I have been letting it get to me has been disappointing, and I think I’m finally ready to stop, as I’ve gotten tired of me being this way.

I have been feeling like the universe has been conspiring against me. I try to think of it like a test that I either pass or die, but it's not a test. My life is specifically amazing and the things that have been eating my soul are physical discomforts and annoyances that should not be allowed to enter my interior world and turn me into something a more monsterish variety of myself. The one that acts like a bitch not getting my way, getting snippy with the wrong people, letting my heavy mood turn a room into an uncomfortable place to exist. Why have I been letting myself fall this way? I ask this to myself every time it happens, and I never seem to come up with a solution. Instead, I let myself feel drenched in self pity because I don't have hot water and people take advantage of me because I'm a gringa and the earthquake made me feel like a helpless speck of nothingness rather than appreciate my life even more like it probably should have. It isn't even about comparing myself to those that have it worse than me, or better than me, all of that being as irrelevant as a pineapple here. It isn't even about thinking about all the truly amazing things I have, like my loving boyfriend, Luna, family, and friends all around me. I don't ever forget those things, nor do I stop appreciating them. The problem is all inside of me and it is the zen I thought I knew how to hold onto has continued seeping out through the very real cracks in the zen, that I clearly don't have a handle on. And the way it manifests is a feeling of defeat that keeps me from moving forward as I should be, as fast as I should be, from bringing an energy that makes the atmosphere better, not worse. It’s an anchor on my feet. I get upset about little things and let them affect how I go about my day. A small thing can send my mind into a negative loop that prevents me from being cool. Or maybe I can manage to make it go away, but it's been a task. I am fighting that negative loop too often.

It comes down to fear, I think. I’m scared of not being successful. I'm embarrassed of being so broke, at 32, or having to ask people to help me, of having to go back to camming, of being so affected by my (relative) poverty that these Mexico City woes smash me so hard. My credit card bills don’t get any lower because of the interest I pay every month, and that makes it hard to deal with these problems that would be easy to deal with if I could just pay someone to fix the external issues this city has delivered. Everyone here just wants money, and if I had the money to give them, I’m sure the gas guys wouldn’t be delivering half full tanks, or I could just buy a new one every time it runs out too fast without thinking anything of it.

I've been humbled this year by so many things. Luna's brush with death, Mexico City taking away so much of my independence (needing a co-signer for my apartment, needing my boyfriend to come with me to buy things so no one rips me off, feeling defeated every time I get lost when everyone around me is speaking Spanish and I think I am fluent but then I suddenly don't understand anything), breaking down and watching Omar handle me with such kindness and patience, always pushing me forward and up, reminding me that my attitude is the main thing that affects my mood, not the external things, all the while I used to be the one to be that person for others. It’s hard. It’s hard having to convince yourself all the time to be positive and not let the external stuff get you down. It’s not something I’m used to having to do. And something has to change, really, for good. It doesn’t matter what happens, for how long I don’t have hot water, no matter if my facial features identifying me as an American no matter how tan I get will always make it so that shop owners prey on me for the money they think I have. I get it, and I’m not even blaming them. The feelings I have and the way I am dealing with them is all my own.

And maybe I’ve kept it to myself for this long because I feel so terrible complaining when I have so much. I feel so terrible, still though, not having hot water, and when I get sick from showering in cold water when it's cold out, and I get even more upset, and I just want to disappear. I consider coming up with solutions, but the more they don't seem to work, the solutions, the more upset I get, and start finding problem-solving to be a waste of time too. This is the negative loop.

And it goes on. So many people think all they need to be happy is to be in love with someone who loves them back, and it's again such a wake up call when you have the love you've always dreamed of, the one nearly everyone dreams of, it is yours, yet you still find yourself feeling empty inside. And you realize that it's just you. Your disappointment is something that nothing can fix but you, because there is nothing external that will make you complete or fulfilled. Completeness starts and ends on the inside. It also comes and goes and comes and goes and comes like the clouds. It's not a static state you find, but a state of flux you find. Even knowing that, my soul has been weeping and leaving me feeling sorry for myself for all these annoyances that really don't matter and shouldn't affect me, way too often, affecting the way I move through my world, the way I treat people, the way my mind wanders to the negative, the way it makes me feel like a failure, defeated, lost. Wondering if the things I do matter at all.

This isn’t to say that I am always feeling this way. I’m fine, I really am. It’s only that I’ve been having trouble being a great person lately, this year, because of all the negative feelings I have to push aside before I can begin. But it’s over now. My attitude that fell victim to the problems, for some reason still unknown, is no longer falling victim.

I'm going to the gym in the morning to get a gym membership, where I can shower with hot water whenever i want, and I will get my neurology in order, as exercise in wont to do, and I will see my body experiencing less exhaustion from small tasks, my mind dissolving frustration more easily. I will put more effort into hanging out with my friends, because in these negative feelings I have also isolated myself more than I should. Sam and I will go this week to walk around Juarez and see the new sculptures, and walk around el centro to look at telas to make curtains. Arely and I will use her dad's electric sander to make my coffee table out of vegetable crates finally. It all sounds so easy and fun and productive and artistic and lovely, right? I guess when you're stuck in a negative loop, it's hard to actually go out and do those things.

Nothing changes if nothing changes, eh?

(day-after-earthquake Luna)