I melt with you

It was impossible to get myself out of bed this morning, or rather, this afternoon. My body hurt and I just wanted to curl up in a lonely ball until the universe imploded or Armageddon came or something like that. I do not want to admit it but finally taking the tiny step of showering inevitably helped at least a little bit. I’ve just kind of been in a mood where, life sucks, what’s the point of artificially delaying the inevitability of the full realisation of that? I do not understand but sometimes like right now I feel quite optimistic in some ways and I don’t understand the cognitive shifts that happen and what leads me to shift from being in utter despair to vaguely excited about certain possibilities and generally okay? I am afraid of things shifting back but right now I am pretty okay. It’d be nice to find someone who knows me well enough to recommend what I can do to lift my mood: today it was just a matter of taking a shower and leaving the house. I did have a good time with my mother and seeing my grandmother…

I did the usual and got a refillable drink at Burger King while waiting for my mother to show up. I got in the car and she brought me some books I had asked for: His Dark Materials, Where the Crawdads Sing, La Chica Salvaje (which is the same thing in Spanish), a book called Poetic Medicine (I figure it might help to get some things out of me in non-musical poetic form before trying to express myself in song or it would come out sounding like some weird drpressing genre that nobody wants to listen to). We drove to Loving Hut, she actually likes that place and lately has no issue going to vegan places with me. Loving Hut was unexpectedly closed so we got two Indian dishes at a delicious though pricy Indian restaurant instead. I got something with eggplant and she got some kind of balls in a tasty saice and we got rice to share and it was yummy. We started talking about what McDonalds has in India: the chicken maharaja mac in place of the Big Mac, all sorts of really different things! I started thinking about how I really would not mind living in India (or Thailand). I started reading stuff about some of the most vegan friendly countries.

I had just been browsing through If the Buddha Got Stuck and I kind of started feeling myself getting a little unstuck as I thought about these things. I am a traveler, it is another thing that makes me different: for one, if I date someone I don’t care where in the world they live (and not just because I’d be happy with a ling distance relationship); but I think I don’t make friends because I forget these essential aspects of who I am, and there is no denying it: being a traveler makes me sound weird and different to most people, and being around folks who are not quite like that *can* take a toll on my self-esteem especially when I feel pressure to live up to the standards of less mobile folks: like the idea of getting a job here, I don’t mind it so much for a bit, if it is a decent job, but it makes me just want to flee: I don’t want to be location dependent! And traveling and living in other countries is just as worthy as trying to make something work in my own country. It is not that I have failed at being successful in my own country though I feel a lot of that kind of potential judgment; I was just made for a different pace, a different mindset, a different way of approaching life, and I frequently feel stuck because I forget that the way I like to live *is* an option even though it rarely gets talked about in the mainstream and people just think you’re weird. I have felt so much alienation since returning to the US and I think when I am on the road or in other countries I just naturally feel more connected, more capable of participating and making friends, because that’s just who I am. I deny that part of myself along with so many weird parts of me and taking everyone else’s advice and feeling like something is wrong eith me because I can’t fit into a mold sure keeps me stuck!

Anyway, there is the question of my state of mind, but I trust Mexico to cheer me up, and I think I will be returning to Mexico with enough money that I will feel soooo much less constricted than last time I was there, though perhaps a less reliable car. That would be my biggest worry. I may have the income to live in Southern California for a year but why do that when I can live in Mexico and probably save up quite a bit and get out of this financial pressure once and for all? I am excited about what options will open up to me with more financial breathing room (crosses fingers) and plenty of breathing room to sit and gather myself and start a business… and I think in Mexico it is so much easier to find time to do that. I love Mexico and maybe one way to make friends is to teach people Spanish and introduce them to Mexico. Getting by in Mexico is so much easier for me than getting by in the US in a lot of ways but that might not be true for a lot of people who enjoy and appreciate the culture so… maybe I can help, because it’s the kind of thing I love doing, and it makes me feel like I am actually good for something, too.

Aside from fear of getting more depressed and being lonely and $6 gasoline in LA and such things this is feeling really good to me: getting to save significant money while living in Mexico without even bringing in another dime, which certainly motivates me to bring in even more cash with some business stuff in my spare time. Options for expansion increasing month by month. Finding a place where I can play guitar, play music: oh, music makes me so happy, I wish I could be around people who feel the same way. Then I could head off to India, Brazil, Thailand, Albania, or who knows what, but I realize I have felt more stuck than I probably need to feel, and if I can get myself back to Mexico, I am probably in pretty good shape? Financially, if not socially, and not by US standards of success so much as just having enough to live and enjoy myself and the space to make more money if I choose… and I am trying not to let US fears of economic security and retirement funds and such get to me, if I did I could be chasing security forever and never finding it no matter what I do…

So, who knows when that might happen, but I’ve got Where the Crawdads Sing in aspanish and to help me brush up I got a book in Spanish with three unforgettable love stories including one by John Greene. Now, I love love stories, and no matter how broken my heart feels, that’s just part of me. I got a cool Spanish/English dictionary too. When we left Barnes and Noble I Melt with You was playing on their speakers and for a moment the crisp air felt full of possibility. When we got into the car This is What You Came For was playing and when that song plays along with another significant synchronicity or the ccurrence in my life it usually seems to mean something.

Why would I Melt with You make me feel so full of possibility and like this is what I was made for even in the midst of these horrible emotional states? That was the moment I started to feel could open up into inspuration for some kibd of screenplay. Yesterday I was depressed reading about some of the toxic culture in that industry, but whatever, I do it for the art and mean people will be mean. Today I was reading a screenplay someone shared on a screenwriting community, thinking as far as character development and such this is not anything I couldn’t do myself. It is hard to compare what I can do to successful screenplays but I can definitely see this artist’s work and think, I could write something just as interesting or funny or whatever. There are great possibilities in a picture of Ariana Grande hanging on the wall. I like the idea of writing screenplays even just to get to throw little details like that into them. Oh, I miss indie young adult coming of age and soul questing quirky romantic falling in love or exploring a relationship kind of movies, and I looove that genre whatever it is, but I haven’t seen a film that properly fit into that genre in ages. I Melt with You seems to be a gateway into the story or dialogue that might unfold for me tonight if I were up to writing… and that song still feels like ine of the clearest guides to finding the True North of my life, like it starts playing and, eureka, I’ve found myself… I think?