Greetings from Mexico!

[sedgwick]

I'm here. It's amazing. I was just sitting on the beach and saw a falling star slide into the sea. I'm a million miles away from Joe and New York City, and I already feel a million times more relaxed than I did three days ago. It's paradise here! I even found a bellydance class!

 

I'm completely reenvisioning my life. The world seems full of possibility. There are a lot of expats here from all over the place (mostly European, I've met almost as many Italians as Mexicans so far) and old-time American fiddle music seems quite irrelevant.

 

If you feel like you need to get away, just feckin' do it. Seriously. Figure it out and go. I am by no means rich, but I can afford this little cabana with one electrical outlet and shared bathroom for 100 pesos/day, and when I walk outside I don't have to fear running into Joe. I'm not having the insane body neurosis I have every day in NYC, where even the plainest girl looks like a model. I am here to heal, and by god I'm going to do it!!!

[skydiveaddict]

shut up I hate you

[sedgwick]

shut up I hate you

 

Well, goodness! I'm sorry you feel that way. Have a lovely day!

[skydiveaddict]

i'm just kidding with ya I know you will have a great time there

Edited March 5, 2010 by skydiveaddict

[Sadbutrelieved]

It sounds wonderful, and like the perfect place to heal. Enjoy your bellydancing class My first class was Monday and when I told them why I was there I got instant support from nine women I'd never met before. If I could get the time off work I'd go somewhere in a heartbeat. Enjoy!

[SadandConfusedWA]

I long to do something similar. How long are you staying?

[sunrae]

Need a roommate?

Sounds lovely.

Enjoy your time!

I love Mexico!

[marlena]

Good for you, Sedge. I am a firm believer in "starting over" in a new place. It's like getting a new lease on life. Have fun and enjoy all the wonderful new experiences coming your way.

[selena_cat]

How Wonderful!!! i've always wanted to go to Mexico,love the Food,Art,culture,music and muchas margaritas! Maybe you can stay there for a good while?

I am getting away to,not as far as you are but to Florida,its good to get away,sometimes you have to. Ever seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun? Great example of starting over and doing something different.

[Brightmoon]

Sounds wonderful:)

[GrayClouds]

I'm a million miles away from Joe and old-time American fiddle music and when I walk outside I don't have to fear running into Joe.

 

Enjoy, but if your going to continue to talk about him at least call him Jose.

[thepulse27]

This sounds like the best idea anyone's ever had.

 

3 and a half months. Australia. I'll be there.

 

 

 

Or New Zealand. I haven't made my mind up yet.

[hopesndreams]

Is there room in your cabana for another cot?

[SadandConfusedWA]

I am seriously considering taking a 6 months leave of absence from my job and going there to heal. The place looks gorgeous in the pictures, I adore the beach and it seems reasonably priced (the city I mean). Can you get away with only speaking English? And I also wonder about visa requirements.

[mickleb]

I'm completely reenvisioning my life. The world seems full of possibility.

 

Well spotted.

 

Go get it, girl.

 

x

[selena_cat]

I am seriously considering taking a 6 months leave of absence from my job and going there to heal. The place looks gorgeous in the pictures, I adore the beach and it seems reasonably priced (the city I mean). Can you get away with only speaking English? And I also wonder about visa requirements.

 

I am sure is a Travel Guide or mexico Travel and Tourism site that can answer these questions. You should go there to heal from whatever is ailing you,i woulldnt mind doing the same thing..heard the fresh water seafood in mexico is Delish!

[sedgwick]

SadandConfused: It depends on where you are whether you can get by with only speaking English. Where I am, very few Mexican people speak English, so I am learning at a rapid rate! As for visa requirements, a google search is your friend there. I'm on a tourist visa, which means that at the end of 6 months I have to leave the country for 72 hours and re-enter, at which point I can stay another 6 months. I'm staying until Dec or Jan, so I'm looking at that 72 hour thing as a good chance to go to Guatemala! (I'm on the south Pacific coast so it's much closer than the US.)

 

So, I have to ask your opinions on something, guys. I brought a friend here with me for the first week. She helped me get down here with my cats, so I paid for her flight and for our lodging. This particular friend has a pathological difficulty being single, so she goes through guys like toilet paper. I've gotten annoyed with her in the past because it tends to go like this: sleep with him on the first or second date, declare on fb that they're "in a relationship" by the second week of knowing each other (at the latest), be MADLY MADLY OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO MARRY THIS ONE in love for maybe three months (max) and then realize he's either an addict, a mooch, or both, and dump him, at which point he is destroyed and she flits off to the next one. I've suggested many times that she consider just trying to be single for a week, just ONE week, but she's never been able to do it.

 

Well, so last week she was MADLY IN LOVE with the latest guy, and then when we met to go to the airport on Monday night she told me she had just dumped him. I asked why, and she said, "He drinks too much. He needs to stop drinking." I suggested once again that maybe, just maybe, declaring oneself in a relationship before one actually KNOWS the person is a bad idea, and it was all, oh yes yes, I'm going to be single.

 

Sure enough, we were here for literally 36 hours before she had a new guy, someone she met in a bar. I was tired that night and said I was just going to go to bed, and she said she wanted to have a drink at the bar near our posada. When I woke up the next morning, she was throwing up from drinking too much, but exuberant about having met this new guy. Since then, every night (and morning) has been the same: she goes out to meet up with him, and the next morning she's hungover. Yesterday I thought we were going to check out a new beach, but she had lunch plans with him so she couldn't. He came to pick her up and they had a good long healthy kiss right in front of me, even though she knows full well how much it hurts me to see that kind of stuff. I had already mentioned to her how seeing another couple kissing on the beach had upset me, because I knew I would never have that again. So when she came back from lunch, in the few hours she had with me before going out with him again for the evening, I asked her to please, please not be all over him in my presence. Sure enough, tonight after dinner we ran into him on the street, and she stopped and smooched on him while I walked on home alone.

 

I asked her this evening if she would consider spending it with me, but they already had plans. I said to her, "I just want to hear you acknowledge that what you're doing really hurts me but you're choosing to do it anyway," and she said, "I acknowledge that what I'm doing hurts you but I'm choosing to do it anyway." Then she left, and I am now sitting in the cabana alone.

 

I don't want to start any drama, but I am considering asking her in the morning to stay with him for the rest of the trip. I came here all happy and excited, and then this started and now I just feel like my head is getting more and more f*cked. The last thing I needed was to bring a dear friend here and be told that she cared more about the boy of the minute (or rather, the second, or the millisecond) than me.

 

So am I being irrational and just jealous because guys fall all over her and they don't even look at me? I had gotten to the point where I was resigned to being single forever and slowly becoming okay with it, and then the friend for whose trip I paid decided to flaunt her ability to pick up guys (when she knows quite well I can't and that I am mourning the loss of that part of my life.) I mean, she can't even respect me enough not to kiss him in front of me, or to say, when we run into him on the street, "I'm out with my friend right now but I'll meet up with you later." Instead I am left to walk on alone while she kisses him (which I had asked her just the night before to please not do in front of me.)

 

I just want her to leave, and I'm trying to figure out if I only want it because I'm a jealous b*tch. I mean, I'll never have a lover again, and all she has to do is walk out the front door and guys are practically buying raffle tickets to be with her. I haven't even been LOOKED at in almost three years now, and I want her to be sensitive to that, but then, why should she rein in her fabulousness just because her friend is a dud?

 

Ugh. I wish I hadn't brought her, I really do.

Edited March 8, 2010 by sedgwick

[skydiveaddict]

I'll never have a lover again, and all she has to do is walk out the front door and guys are practically buying raffle tickets to be with her. I haven't even been LOOKED at in almost three years now, and I want her to be sensitive to that, but then, why should she rein in her fabulousness just because her friend is a dud?

 

Ugh. I wish I hadn't brought her, I really do.

 

 

Dont say that You will find love again

[mickleb]

Sorry to hear your friend is so flaky, Sedge. You don't need people like that in your life, you know.

 

She may have some other cracking qualities but if she can't be there for you when you really need her, then what is the point?

 

She is a touch C.R.A.Z.E.E., obviously and is not on the path to fulfilment but I suspect you get that. Her behaviour is of a commiment phobe. Funny how you have been attracted to both her and Joe, eh? That's the CP dynamic, I guess.

 

People like this can make a party swing so wildly that those who attend won't forget it for decades but you don't have to let them in so close that they can dance all over your feelings, whenever the rhythm takes them.

 

Just tell her straight: I invited you so you could help me to settle in, not so you could help me to feel lonely in your company. If you can't be here with me, go.

 

That's fair. I'm sure her well-primed defence systems can handle it. You never know, the penny may actually just drop a notch for her, when she realises you mean it and put her bags by the door.

 

Whatever you do, realise you don't need anyone to stop you from having the life you want. And I'll be keeping a check on those feelings of yours so that I can electronically high-five you when you begin to recall how bloody lucky some guy would be to hang out with you.

 

My eyes are peeled.

 

Now get out into that sunshine!

 

x

[quankanne]

I'm with Mickle – time to remind her that "you gotta dance with the one who brung ya," i.e., spend time with the person gracious enough to invite AND pay for you to come along. Maybe you suggesting she find other quarters for her duration of the stay is a smart move.

 

because while it'll smart like hell to have to resort to doing this to a "friend," it'll also get rid of unwanted baggage ...

 

I think what's really sad is that she's not going to take away anything from this trip that could be considered "soul-growing," you know?

[angelaM]

Yes, ask her to stay somewhere else for the duration. She isn't treating you very well, and you don't need the aggravation. I'm curious though, why you are surprised at her behavior, if this has been her M.O. for some time? Because even though she is behaving in a selfish and insensitive manner (especially after you paid her way), she does seem to be so focused on male attention that I can't imagine the concept of loyalty to a girlfriend would ever even occur to her.

 

But also, I don't think you are being a jealous b*tch at all, but I do sense an element of envy. Maybe look at that, and figure out how to come to terms with your feelings. It isn't her fault you have decided you will never love or be loved again. Beware the victim role here. There will always be happy couples kissing in public; all you can ever control is how you handle that situation.

[Sadbutrelieved]

I can see why you feel upset, Sedgwick; you're there to heal, not have someone else's lust rubbed in your face. I would try to get her out of there. In time things like this won't bother you anymore, but here and now it does and you deserve to heal in your own way.

[sedgwick]

Thanks so much for the advice, everybody. My friend left this morning. We talked things over and I decided I didn't want to make a big deal out of it by asking her to stay somewhere else. Besides, she did anyway. She stayed with him every night after the first three nights she was here (10 days.)

 

Yes, it's rude as all hell, but I decided I still wanted to be her friend when I return in December. I don't want to spend the rest of my trip thinking about losing her friendship. She really is one of my best friends, she just has really, really bad judgment when it comes to men.

 

Night before last I decided to walk into a bar -- just walk in and walk out. I did it, but I then spent a good 15 minutes sitting on the beach hyperventilating and crying and telling Joe how much I miss him (by which I mean telling the night sky.) He left me feeling so awful about myself, so afraid of the world and other people -- especially men -- that I felt I didn't deserve to be there, to be seen. I felt fat and ugly and awful, like I was burdening the people there just by walking in. But I did it, and it was a HUGE step. I want to have a social life here instead of hiding like I did in NYC. I will force myself to get there even though I feel like the freakin' Elephant Man, like I need a full-body hood to go out in public.

[mickleb]

But I did it, and it was a HUGE step. I want to have a social life here instead of hiding like I did in NYC. I will force myself to get there

 

Yes, you bloody did.

 

Well done, Sedg. I'm really pleased for you!

 

Your thoughts and words are finding a strength that is seeping into your everyday actions. And very soon, the immense rewards of those achievements will begin to be tangible, within your grasp, with every step you take.

 

And that will make you feel more beautiful than ever before.

 

I look forward to hearing every installment.

 

x

[Sadbutrelieved]

The next time will be easier, as will the next after that. The next thing you know you'll be posting how tired you are from being up all night partying