Friday, September 30

3 Years

Just over 3 years ago I moved to Oaxaca. Just over 3 years ago, late one night after a party sprinkled with cacahuates con chilé de arbol and drenched in palomas, that post-party malaise crept up, probably exacerbated by the neighboring cantina's blaring "music."

I doubted being in Mexico, I missed my family, I wanted to have them to my apartment and explain things that I was just learning, and I wanted to tell them about delicious new things I had eaten, drunk, and seen in the market. So in my sporadically used journal, I wrote to them, but about them too--because while we are wonderful, intelligent, amazing, loving...all these positive things and many others, we are also vain as shit. So I wrote to them, and about us, and about the things we love, because they are things we do together, and share with each other. Then I started this blog, so I could share these things with them as they happened.

In three years, my life has changed dramatically in ways that I guess I knew it would eventually, but never really believed or understood--and that I still don't. In three years, I have written consistently less and less, but gone home more and more. In three years, I've shown friends and family around Oaxaca, and took them to eat in my favorite spots, played the knowledgable tour-guide/translator, and loved every minute of it. In three years, I've lugged suitcases full of mezcal, chocolate, and chilied bugs to the North--the anticipation of sharing these things and being with my family giving me much joy, even before the actual trip. In three years, I have had more compliments about looking beautiful or happy just after these visits than at any other time...and I get a lot of these (See?, I wasn't joking about that vanity thing). In three years there are some things that still haven't changed--I still doubt being in Mexico, and I miss my family all the time. In three years, I'm hoping that writing it down will still help share things with my family when I can't be there with them.