letters to nobody #9: bliss

darling nobody,

the next few days are pure bliss. i blend into my new family perfectly: i am happy, my mental health is soaring, i manage to be productive and i also spend time with my new family, something that i enjoy doing very much. i already dread moving away from here: i know that this is the family for me, and this feeling never changes in the next few weeks.

my host parents are warm and welcoming: i enjoy talking to them more than anything, and ask them questions about everything under the sun- that they are patient enough to answer.

something unexpected that happens in the house is that i begin to like cats. like, in fact, is an understatement, i fall utterly in love with them.

as a child, i adored both cats and dogs an equal amount, but as i grew older, my love for cats began to diminish. i began to see them as angry, disloyal creatures and stopped playing with them.

my family has five cats. there is patricio or pato, the fat, old orange cat with no feelings. 

there is sonny, who is the first cat to enter my room and sit on my bed like he owns it (he does). i spend about fifteen minutes trying to take him out of the room, before realizing that the best way to do it is just picking him up and keeping him outside.

there is coffee, the fifteen year old beautiful but terribly sick cat with cancer. when i see coffee for the first time, i almost cry because his condition is so pitiable. 

then there are ella and nina: my two favourite cats, absolute bundles of joys with the most mischievous personalities. they both love sneaking into my room and then racing away from me when i try to pick them up. they also love holding my foot and playing with it.

in the next few days, i grow crazy over the cats- to the extent that i miss them immensely even if i go out of the house just for a few hours.

+

i’m happy here, darling nobody, and i think of you less. i don’t want you anymore, i tell myself, and try to erase you from my mind. it’s easier when i’m content, i realize- but you still keep coming back.

when i think of cenotes, or lagoons, or chichen itza- you come back.

when i think of you at the same airport where i was, you come back.

it’s difficult to forget you, to erase you completely, but i am determined.

+

i am less homesick in my new house.

what i do miss, though, is the hugs from my family and friends.

before i came to mexico, i used to hug my family and friends a lot, trying to commit the feel of their hugs to memory. it did work perfectly: i know for a fact that even if i’m ever unable to remember their faces, i will still remember what each individual hug feels like.

sometimes, i close my eyes, and imagine myself enveloped in the arms of a friend or a family member, and my imagination feels so real that it stuns me. i can remember everything: from the temperature to every curve of their body, and this only makes me miss them more.

but i’m doing better than before, and i’m okay. and i know i will be better.

+

i start salsa classes, and am surprisingly good at it, for someone who is terrible at dancing.

one evening, at salsa classes, my host mom and i are asked if we would like to join the other students at a salsa party two hours away in playa del carmen. the party is on a friday, will start at 10pm and end at around 2am. excited, i immediately say yes.

the week of the party turns out to be long and draining. i am sleep-deprived, constantly exhausted and craving the weekend just so i can spend an entire day sleeping.

on the night of the party, though, my host dad gets a call.

it’s from the parents of another exchange student, asking him if i want to go to merida, yucatan for the weekend. they will be leaving the next morning, and would like me to go with them.

instantly, i know i want to say yes, and i do.

in my mind, i’m anxious about how i’m going to survive the weekend with barely no sleep- but it’s too nice an offer to say no to. a long weekend lies ahead of me, and i am more thrilled by it than nervous.

we go to the salsa party by bus that night, with all the other people in class. i live for drives at night, and feel all warm and fuzzy the entire way. my host mom and i spend the entire journey talking in whispers- she shows me pictures of the other exchange students she has hosted, tells me stories and we also talk about the lgbtq+ community. i leave the bus feeling just as warm and fuzzy- except for the fact that it’s freezing cold outside.

the hotel of the party is right next to the beach, and the party- in the balcony. a result of this is that i’m constantly shivering, and dying for a blanket. after about half an hour of my teeth chattering from the cold, i consider crawling under the table so there is no wind- but then, it begins to pour. in my head, i curse every god that i don’t believe in, and pull my shawl tighter around me- until we are whisked away inside the hotel.

it takes about half an hour for my body to return to a fairly normal temperature again.

there is a dance show after this with phenomenal performances, including one performance of a woman playing with fire. by the time the show ends, i take another sip of my pina colada drink, and declare that i cannot choose a favourite performance.

i could be dancing with you here, darling nobody- if you weren’t worlds away, and not mine.

we get home at half past three in the morning, and i am more sleep than human, practically falling onto the flower. i stumble up the stairs to my room and drop off to sleep, slightly stressed about waking up early to pack for my two day trip.

+

it’s a three hour drive to merida, and we stop to eat chinese food on the way.

we reach our hotel early in the evening, take a shower, and leave immediately to go to paseo de montejo, a famous street. there are horse carriages waiting outside the hotel, and that’s how we ride around the city, with me constantly feeling worried about the horses.

we reach the centre of the city- which is full of shops, performances and people. it’s lively and bright amd gorgeous, and i instantly love merida more than i love cancun.

while we are walking, a little child runs up to us with a ribbon in her hand. she asks in spanish if she can tie the ribbon around my wrist, and i smile down at her and say yes, not knowing what the ribbon is for. she takes me to her mother, who is holding a little baby in her hand. i coo at the baby, and he smiles. it is the mother who ties the ribbon around my wrist, and waves me goodbye as i leave. for some reason, her eyes are full of pain, sadness is practically seeping out of her being.

“what was that for?” i ask my friend’s host mother (who also happens to be my third host mother).

“oh, it’s against abortion,” she replies, and i stare.

it takes me less than a minute to pull the ribbon off my wrist.

i have always been pro-choice, because i have always believed that the life of the mother is more important than the life of some unformed cells- as cold as it may sound, it’s true- a fetus of less than three months has no life, and is nothing but a bunch of cells.

this incident, though, begins to make me think. my decision of being pro-choice will never waver, and i know that- but i do start realizing some other things.

before this incident, i always thought of pro-lifers as cold and misogynistic- mostly white supremacists with no respect for women or their health- people who don’t care about babies once they’re outside the womb.

here, though, i realized that pro-lifers, sometimes, are just sensitive people who love babies way too much to even imagine any harm being done to them. they’re not all cold and mean- sometimes, they’re the gentlest of souls, and tears spring to their eyes at the very thought of a baby that’s hurting.

being someone who generalizes people a lot despite trying not to, this was a very important lesson to me- and helped me get rid of some of my preconceived notions.

we go for a traditional mexican show after this, where i eat churros and get a caricature done before the performance starts.

the performance includes mariachi singers and traditional mexican dances from different states, and apart from barely understanding the words, i enjoy the performances just as much as everyone else. i have grown to love mexican culture almost as much as the culture of india.

the next morning, after breakfast, we check out of our hotel and go to a mayan museum.

mayan culture is fascinating to me, especially the positive outlook they had towards death. 

that is something i can never adopt, i tell my host mother, death is the one thing i fear the most. 

darling nobody,

you don’t come back to me like you used to, any more- but when you do, it hurts even more.

but like i said, my darling, i am determined.

i am determined to forget you.

x