Raw

When I moved to Mexico, I decided to try to be as open as possible to the new experiences I would inevitably have. I’m not completely a “go with the flow” kinda gal to start with, so some of this was going to be an uphill battle. But I find that I have left myself so raw and open that it’s hard to protect myself against attacks, whether internal or external, real or perceived.

And I’m really good at attacking myself. My old joke was, “I’m neither Jewish or Catholic, but somehow I got their guilt complex”. Being down here seems to have brought that out even more. Everything I do stays with me for days. If I screw up, I attack myself for whatever I did or didn’t do, and won’t let myself off the hook. I can’t seem to forgive myself for being human and fallible.

Today Luis and I went to Guzman to see if we could track down a lumber resource for our newest venture - a furniture and cabinetry business. We stopped at a friend’s business to see if he had any leads. He said he knew a carpenter, but wasn’t sure if he would be open to talking to “the competition”. So Luis and his friend went alone to talk to the guy. I stayed behind at a coffee house and waited.

Now, all of this seems logical. And I agreed to wait. But I quickly got resentful at being left behind. This is apparently a big issue for me, but I haven’t gotten a good enough hold on it to be able to either deal with it or explain it to Luis so he knows where it comes from when I freak out about it.

Which is exactly what happened when he got back. Turns out the carpenter was more than happy to give him a number of leads and a bunch of information. This is good, right? Of course, getting all that information down in one conversation takes a while. Luis said it would probably only be gone for half an hour. But half an hour passed and he wasn’t back. Meanwhile, all I could think of while Luis was gone was how resentful I felt. I had been left behind again with nothing to do while he was off taking care of business. Again. I thought I was going to be justified when he came back and I gave him shit.

I knew that I was in that bad mental space, and I knew it would be best for me to get out of it. But sometimes it gets ahold of me and it’s difficult to shake off.

So Luis returns after 45 minutes and I try to stay calm. I let him talk for about 3 minutes and then lean into him. I tell him I feel like I was left behind and tried to compare it to one time when he went off on me for a similar experience. In the middle of my bitching I realized I had made a mistake. I was making a big deal out of something that didn’t need to be bothered with, that I was lashing out at him for something that was really my issue. I tried to back track, and told Luis that I realized I had fucked up, that I realized that I was in the wrong. He said ok.

But I couldn’t let it go. I was worried that I was fucking the whole relationship up, not just the conversation. And I couldn’t forgive myself for going down that path when it wasn’t necessary. I wanted him to give me a hug and tell me it was ok, I’m just human, he still loves me. I was looking for him to be my support system. The one I don’t have here – no girlfriends, no male friends, no family (at least not family who can speak English). But that isn’t possible. Luis can’t be both my lover and my support system. So I ended up feeling like shit and not having anyone to smack me upside the head and tell me I was being silly.

It’s a big circular mental fuck. And it’s hard to pull out of when you’re in the vortex. It’s neverending. And I’m so raw from it.

I think I have lost myself. I need someone else to confirm that I exist. Is this rock bottom? If so, it’s all uphill from here, right?