So, staying true to form, it has been awhile.
Rattling along a winding stretch of road in a busito. It seems like there is nothing but dense jungle on both sides, yet an occasional dirt track or manmade field break up the seemingly impenetrable green. A pit has been forming in my stomach since passing, Canitas, a small insignificant town to most, but to me, a last marker along the road, 15 minutes until my least favorite place in the world. That was 14 minutes ago, and now through a gap in the trees, shining blue can be seen. It's on both sides of the road, but if you're not observant or don't know what to look for you'd never notice. It would slowly envelop you until suddenly steel and concrete would carry you over it and you'd feel endorphins involuntarily released in your brain as you are suprised, caught of guard by the beauty and grandness of the lake, that you never noticed through peeling bus windows while it stalked you from the jungle.
I am not carried over it usually and not this time, at least not yet. I do not feel the affects of endorphins when I catch glimpses of it. Something very different fills me; dread, anxiety, uncomfort, the makings of a minor misery.
When I see the jungle starting to dissipate and the road start filling with trash, I start to count out three dollars and fifty cents. When I see a familar, apparently hastily thrown together shack with a thatch roof and mismatched boards built bien pegado to the side of a small cliff, I call for my parada. When the bus slows at the police checkpoint, I rip my self free from my seat pegged to the window and fight my way through the aisle of the busito, unwedge my bag from beneath the seat of a stranger, and I step off just as the bus comes to a stop. My foot hits the ground and my body fills with sorrow. An instant later dust is flung into my face as the busito hurries off, as if it too preferred not to be in that place.
I look around, searching for a familiar face, walk a short distance among the trash lined street, gazing down a steep hill to a filthy garbage dump known as the port. My eyes jump from face to face, boat to boat, looking for a savior, nothing.
I drag myself to a bench on the other side of the road in a patch of dirt under a rancho where I will sit for the next five minutes to seven hours. Nobody will talk to me, save for a creepy condescending police officer or two. I will anxiously sit and feel completely and wholly alone. I will sit and those around me will speak in an indigenous language I do not understand at all. I will sit on the verge of tears completely miserable until somebody is willing to take me home, across the lake or I give up and take a rattling busito away from the unhappy place back to where I came, only to return the following day to try again.
This place. This miserable smattering of houses along the side of road that jumps a lake to escape it. This is my entrada, everyone calls it Puente. I hate this place. I hate the frustration and hopelessness that fills me while I wait here for a boat. It is a despair and misery so deep, I find it hard to describe. Even thinking about this place can destroy my happiness. It makes me bitter. It makes me not want to leave site when I am in it and it makes me never want to go back when I have left.
It's not the town, it's the way I feel completely insignificant, alone, and forgotten as I waste hours there waiting for somebody who may never come. The complete and total lack of control, the unknowingness, the inability to improve my situation.
This is not a metaphor, but it is.
I don't know how many pictures I have posted of the sunset over the lake, the bridge, a late afternoon boat ride, or just Puente in general with a happy or inspirational caption. I've not once felt happy nor inspired in Puente, yet I repeatedly lie on social media, why? I've decided on early termination while sitting on that bench at Puente more than once, only talking myself out of it halfway back to Panama city, or after lying on my floor staring at my roof for several hours.
My mental stability at Punete is new born giraffe at best, but there is such a stigma to admitting we are struggling with something. It's not being aware of your mental health or honest about your emotions, it's complaining or being a downer. And beyond that we are proud, we post all of our best moments to Facebook, constant fun and happiness. We think a person cannot struggle, cannot be sad or something is wrong with them. They aren't trying hard enough. If they only choose to be happy or adopt a more positive outlook. But the truth is, it's okay to be unhappy and it's more than okay to not try to force yourself to be happy.Telling someone to smile, cheer up, or stop being grumpy isn't helpful, because mental health isn't that easy.
This has gone on a tangent, what I was trying to do was validate misery as an acceptable way to feel and to try and explain that just because somebody is not happy does not mean they should be happy. The pressure to feel happy when I am not makes it harder for me to actually feel happy, because it makes me anxious. Being sad and accepting it as ok and normal is better than trying to force happiness on yourself or others.
I am not carried over it usually and not this time, at least not yet. I do not feel the affects of endorphins when I catch glimpses of it. Something very different fills me; dread, anxiety, uncomfort, the makings of a minor misery.
When I see the jungle starting to dissipate and the road start filling with trash, I start to count out three dollars and fifty cents. When I see a familar, apparently hastily thrown together shack with a thatch roof and mismatched boards built bien pegado to the side of a small cliff, I call for my parada. When the bus slows at the police checkpoint, I rip my self free from my seat pegged to the window and fight my way through the aisle of the busito, unwedge my bag from beneath the seat of a stranger, and I step off just as the bus comes to a stop. My foot hits the ground and my body fills with sorrow. An instant later dust is flung into my face as the busito hurries off, as if it too preferred not to be in that place.
I look around, searching for a familiar face, walk a short distance among the trash lined street, gazing down a steep hill to a filthy garbage dump known as the port. My eyes jump from face to face, boat to boat, looking for a savior, nothing.
I drag myself to a bench on the other side of the road in a patch of dirt under a rancho where I will sit for the next five minutes to seven hours. Nobody will talk to me, save for a creepy condescending police officer or two. I will anxiously sit and feel completely and wholly alone. I will sit and those around me will speak in an indigenous language I do not understand at all. I will sit on the verge of tears completely miserable until somebody is willing to take me home, across the lake or I give up and take a rattling busito away from the unhappy place back to where I came, only to return the following day to try again.
This place. This miserable smattering of houses along the side of road that jumps a lake to escape it. This is my entrada, everyone calls it Puente. I hate this place. I hate the frustration and hopelessness that fills me while I wait here for a boat. It is a despair and misery so deep, I find it hard to describe. Even thinking about this place can destroy my happiness. It makes me bitter. It makes me not want to leave site when I am in it and it makes me never want to go back when I have left.
It's not the town, it's the way I feel completely insignificant, alone, and forgotten as I waste hours there waiting for somebody who may never come. The complete and total lack of control, the unknowingness, the inability to improve my situation.
This is not a metaphor, but it is.
I don't know how many pictures I have posted of the sunset over the lake, the bridge, a late afternoon boat ride, or just Puente in general with a happy or inspirational caption. I've not once felt happy nor inspired in Puente, yet I repeatedly lie on social media, why? I've decided on early termination while sitting on that bench at Puente more than once, only talking myself out of it halfway back to Panama city, or after lying on my floor staring at my roof for several hours.
My mental stability at Punete is new born giraffe at best, but there is such a stigma to admitting we are struggling with something. It's not being aware of your mental health or honest about your emotions, it's complaining or being a downer. And beyond that we are proud, we post all of our best moments to Facebook, constant fun and happiness. We think a person cannot struggle, cannot be sad or something is wrong with them. They aren't trying hard enough. If they only choose to be happy or adopt a more positive outlook. But the truth is, it's okay to be unhappy and it's more than okay to not try to force yourself to be happy.Telling someone to smile, cheer up, or stop being grumpy isn't helpful, because mental health isn't that easy.
This has gone on a tangent, what I was trying to do was validate misery as an acceptable way to feel and to try and explain that just because somebody is not happy does not mean they should be happy. The pressure to feel happy when I am not makes it harder for me to actually feel happy, because it makes me anxious. Being sad and accepting it as ok and normal is better than trying to force happiness on yourself or others.
I am miserable sometimes.
I am overjoyed sometimes.
I am overjoyed sometimes.
Both are valid, normal, important.
