A Brief Moment of Honesty

What makes it so hard to adapt to life here?

I think the only thing keeping me above the insanity line these days is the expectation of my little baby showing up soon, and the false hope that caring for it will be rewarding and distracting enough to get me through the next year and a half.

I try to convince myself that I’m not fully appreciative of the luxury of having time to stay home and care for this little one, that I’m not working now, I don’t have to worry about fighting for maternity leave or having to find day care for a three-month-old. But I think we all know that that’s bullshit. It’s like saying that the unemployed live in the luxury of not having to worry about getting fired.

It’s true that having this time is nice in many ways. I am happy I’ll have time after the baby arrives to just stay at home, but that doesn’t change that I miss working, that we’re slipping into poverty, that I might go insane having no one to talk to except a newborn and the internet.

So what’s my god damn problem already? My problem is that I don’t want to be here, and I never did. I liked the life I had, and I like it even more now that I don’t have it. I don’t want to live in Mexico, and I never wanted to. I’m not remotely interested in adapting to life in a small Mexican village, surrounded by people I don’t want to relate to. I want to keep on being a liberal, educated, atheist, environmentalist, feminist, dorky, social foodie living among friends and beautiful places. I don’t like the lifestyle here. I don’t like the religiousness, the racism, the sexism, the lack of education, the pollution. I don’t want to be here, and that’s why even the little things bother me. I can’t adapt because I’m unwilling to. I’m unwilling to give up my old life. I still want it. And as long as I continue pining after that life instead, I’ll probably continue to be pretty unhappy here.

As much as I lie and say I’m here for other reasons, I’m here only because I feel I have no other choice.


This doesn’t change that I’ll try to make the most of it, that I’ll keep trying to dupe myself into thinking I'll make it work. It doesn’t change the fact that I am here, and until that changes I had really better suck it up and move on.