I didn’t want to blog about it for a number of reasons.  First, I didn’t want to scare people who love me.  Second, with a fledgling business, I did not want to alienate potential or current clients who might stumble across this blog and not want to work with me.  Although I have always done what I can to keep my professional life OFF this blog, I’m not obtuse enough not to know how easy it is to find me with a google search.  Finally, the worthlessness and despair I felt was so complete as to render any attempts at trying to make sense of it moot, and I could not then and still cannot find the words to describe how bad I felt.

Long time readers of this blog already know that in the last year, I’ve made a number of major life changes, with extremely positive results.  I am, and have been for almost a year, the happiest I have ever been.  While I still struggle from time to time with depression, I recognize the signs now and can quickly mend the things that are amiss and change my thought patterns to feel better.  Recently, it occurred to me that for the first time in my life, I know myself to be a happy person who sometimes gets sad, and not a sad person who is only occasionally happy.  The incredibly positive change this self-realization has effected in my life cannot be overstated.

All of this said, in the last month I have struggled mightily with insomnia, which for me is often a precursor to slipping into a depression.  Several nights ago, when it was five am and I still had not been able to close my eyes without being visited by the Shrieking Weasels of Impending Doom, I decided to do some research on a life-affirming movement I’d heard about a few years ago:  The Free Hugs Campaign.

In 2004, a man who identifies himself as Juan Mann found himself in his hometown of Sydney, Australia, after a number of years living in another country.  He arrived back “home” with only a suitcase of clothes, a world of cares, and a sense of disconnection with the life he’d once lived there.  Landing at the airport with no one to greet him, he found himself looking longingly at other travelers around him who were laughing and hugging their arriving loved ones.  He wished  he had someone to hug him.

In this moment of isolation and despair was born a revolutionary idea.  Juan Mann “set up shop” in a busy Sydney outdoor mall, holding aloft a large, hand-lettered sign that said “FREE HUGS.”  Then he just waited for someone to take him up on his offer.  At first, people laughed at him, stared, and whispered.  Eventually, an older woman came up, told him she was having a terrible day as her dog had just died that morning, on the first anniversary of her daughter’s death.  She needed a hug, and Juan had a hug to give.  It didn’t take long for others to follow suit, and naturally such a subversive idea (What??  You’re not selling anything?  There’s no catch, just a free hug?) caught people’s attention.

A local band, Sick Puppies, was moved by Juan’s mission and presented him with a video they’d made of his Free Hug footage set to one of their songs.  This video became an internet sensation, spawning Free Hug Campaigns in dozens of countries all over the world.

Here you can watch the “original” Free Hugs video:

And here is one of my favorites of the “copycat” Free Hugs Campaigns, in New York City:

What does all of this have to do with me and my story of depression?  Perhaps nothing more than an epiphany that we are all more alike than we are different, and that it is vitally important that we connect with each other and help each other get through lives that can at times be difficult, lonely, or filled with hopelessness.  We must be there for one another both in sadness and in joy.

Every year, International Free Hugs Day is held on the first Saturday in July.  This year, it is July 3, which is incidentally the day before my 6 year anniversary of living in Mexico.  I will be showing my gratitude and love for my adopted country by participating in Free Hugs Day in Playa del Carmen on July 3, offering free hugs to Mexican locals, ex-pats, and international tourists alike.

I would love it if some of my friends would join me, but if they won’t, I will go it alone.  If you can’t be in Playa del Carmen on July 3, consider participating in the Free Hugs Campaign in your own town.

Anyone from Cancun, Playa del Carmen, or Tulum (or anywhere in the area!) who’d like to give out some free hugs with me on July 3 can contact me via this website.  My email address is under the “About Me” tab.

I looked down toward the beach in front of the neighbor’s house and saw four fully naked, attractive young women laughing their fake laughter and building a giant sand penis.  Then I saw one older, unattractive bald man FILMING them. 

I admit, I couldn’t help watching.  The scene was just bizarre…first, it has been unseasonably cold here, and this day was no exception.  The sun was out, but STILL, it was far too chilly for full on nakedness. Second, while Tulum attracts the nudies and the hippies, this scene was just so unnatural and forced that it stood out much more than seeing some random crunchy-granola hairy man walking down the beach. 

As I went back to my work, two of the women were hugging up on the unattractive man, giggling and running their french-manicured acrylics up and down his chest.  My imagination portrays this man as a wealthy old perv with a skewed sense of the sexy from many years of watching porn, but I admit my own bias has the heaviest hand in painting that portrait.   I’m not averse to pornography and think it has its place in a healthy sex life, but prefer scenes that feature people who look like people engaging in relatively  normal activities.  Not, say, four naked women building a giant sand penis while a man old enough to be their father films them.  But that’s me. 

One thing is certain, I’ve never seen anything this interesting in Playa del Carmen.  I don’t know if they were all staying in the rental home next door, but at 2am, there was a lot of shouting and slamming of doors over there.  Trouble in paradise?

When I saw the photos we took of our wine/Almond Joy/gummi bear/Hershey’s bacchanalia, I couldn’t help but think that these photos would show all of our Three Legged Race sponsors just what an Olympics-quality team they’re standing behind.

For anyone considering sponsoring us, don’t miss your chance to win a date with these chicas by being the highest individual donor; they truly know how to have a good time.  Our friend Maureen saw these photos and said we remind her of Lucy and Ethel.  That was one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever gotten…Sara and I crack each other up.

I don’t feeeel so good.

I’m not sleeping, I’m just resting my eyes.

Do we have anything in our teeth?

If you’d like to sponsor our team and raise money for Firemen who desperately need you, please donate by going to www.PayPal.com and clicking on the link that says “send money.” Then just follow the prompts to donate directly to us by using the following email address:

info@caribesunrise.com

Please be sure to write in your comments/subject line “Three Legged Race.” We will keep you updated with donation totals.

For further information or to register your team please call: 984-135-1233 or e-mail:

kegsbar@hotmail.com

We are also taking business/corporate sponsors!!  Contact us at info@caribesunrise.com or editor@playamayanews.com if you’d like to be mentioned on Playa Maya News, Playa.info, and Heather in Paradise!!

Ok, so Ima talk about my period and blood and female shit, so if you’re a squeamish “man” who’s too chicken to buy tampons for your girlfriend then you better check out now. Consider your sackless asses warned.

Now, for the rest of you…Look into my eyes…you are getting very, very sleepy…

I am slightly embarrassed to mention that my period took me by surprise at the Labor Day picnic I attended in Chicago this past September. Let me remind you all that I am 38 years old. Since I’ve only been getting my period every month for the last 25 years (that’s 300 chances to get it right, for those of you not standing by with calculators), it’s only natural and totally forgivable that I was not prepared and had to avail myself of the International Lady-Emergency Hotline to get straight (Martina to Katie to Heather and…SCORE!! And the crowd goes wild!!).

After 25 years of monthly spontaneous bloodletting, one might think that sooner or later one would start to run out of blood and that the “end” years of the Bleeding Game would result in fainter and fainter episodes of cramping and clotting. That over time, the quantity of flowage would be directly proportionate to the ever-lessening quantity of wishful eggs-to-be-released. That my PMS would infinitesimally dissipate and my menstrual discomfort slowly, but surely grind to a complete stop, to the strains of creepy organ music distortedly unwinding in a slow motion Merry-Go-Round nightmare.

But no. That’s not how it has been for me. I’m starting to think that Mother Nature, She’s got it out for me big time. I’m pretty sure that vindictive bitch wants me to give birth and She hasn’t exactly been a shrinking violet in letting me know it, increasingly making my periods heavier, longer, and harder to endure than ever. My period used to be a gentle little procreation reminder each month, a charming Victorian glove slap saying, You cad, you are wasting our time, but now it’s a back-alley beat down that practically leaves me in traction and only able to communicate by blinking. If I’m found soon in the bottom of a lake, handless and with my feet sunk into cement, you’ll know that only my childlessness is to blame, and Mother Nature is the culprit.

Because I’m the faithless traitor. The one rejecting Her simple fertility demands, the careless slut reaping all the benefits of sex with none of the penalties. The mocking vixen sitting motionless, watching all her freely-given figs wither on the branch.

And I have to admit, She’s starting to get to me. I feel like a POW caving under torture, giving not only my name, rank, and serial number, but also top-secret information that will breach every security device I’ve installed over the years to protect myself from motherhood.

After all, as my family and friends can attest, I have always loved kids, especially babies (sweet Christ, I could eat babies for breakfast every single day of my life and never tire of them). I met my friend Keersten’s new baby a few weeks ago and had to be physically restrained from swallowing little Elsa whole, booties and all.

When I met M. over 8 years ago, he made it very clear from the absolute start that he unequivocally did NOT want children. And in my not-quite-30-year-old-and-attitudinal state, I thought, “So fucking what, buddy? What makes you think I even WANT to have a kid, sheesh! And even if I did, what in the hell makes you think you’re such a great catch?!” (Ah, how quaint the beginnings of long relationships look through a telescope.)

I have been truly ambivalent about it for many years, unsure whether or not I should or should not have children. Struggling with massive self-centeredness and feeling unequal to the monumental task of raising a well-adjusted little person. Knowing that if I DID decide that I wanted to be a mother that it would mean leaving behind someone I love and disrupting my entire life.

Something that bothers me is this: Any idiot can have kids. The dopes, they’re not sitting home worrying about overpopulation or the sort of psychological damage they’ll inevitably inflict upon their children. They’re just out there breeding indiscriminately, instilling in their kids the same fucked-upedness that threatens to end our planet. It’s the people like me, people like my friends, people like you, who value education, the arts, critical thinking, who shun racism and homophobia and sexism and lots of other –isms, we’re the ones who NEED to be having babies. And I feel in some ways that my refusal to do so (and my friends’ refusal to do so; I have few friends with children) is a real dereliction of duty, a lazy shirking of responsibility to our race.

I thought I’d left this battle behind for good, consoling myself with the fact that there are LOTS of ways for me to have kids in my life without having to mother them, should I decide in the future that I need more shortie time. I am still of the belief that in the unlikely event I should decide to mother, I will opt for non-biological motherhood, since I get overwhelmed and sad thinking about the amazing number of existing kids who need parents, but don’t have them. I don’t have to squeeze a kid out of my vag to love it fiercely enough to kill anyone who tried to hurt it. My nephew and niece are living testaments to the truth of that sentiment.

Until recently, this has only been a philosophical dilemma, but lately I’ve been feeling like I’m engaged in an all-out monthly war game: Brutal, hand-to-hand combat with my own body. It’s pretty apparent to me that at this late date, neither one of us is going down without a fight.

I want to sincerely, deeply, from the bottom of my shriveled little black heart thank all of you who have checked in every day to be faced with nothing new, to you who have written me a note of encouragement or sent me an email or a text.  Under the bell jar, not much sound gets through, but from time to time the noise made is just raucous enough to break the seal.  I think I’m back.  I think I’m on my way back.  I’m sleeping, anyway.

While I was underwater, this blog quietly slipped over 100,000 hits.  Amazing, that.  So I thought it might be thoughtful for me to put together a page of what might be considered my “greatest hits to date.” So that anyone stumbling across my blog wouldn’t have to wade through as much crap as you have all had to.

I have a few particular blogs of mine that I think might be “winners” in that they generated the most comments.  I also have one or maybe two that I think are actually decent writing.  But ultimately I believe that you are the judges.  You tell me your favorites of the blogs I’ve subjected you to over this past year.  I’ll put them together on a little page, it will be like Heather in Paradise Cliff Notes for the lazy student.

As soon as my computer is saved, the new blog will be posted.  Thank you for bearing with me.  I will try not to leave you again, I promise.  Because when you’re gone, I miss you.

Please stay tuned, we shall return to our regularly scheduled silliness as soon as possible.

I’ve struggled on-and-off with insomnia for as long as I can remember, so it’s not a big surprise.  It’s just that when I’m in the middle of the cycle, it seems like maybe this time I’m not going to pull myself out of the tailspin.  Like maybe this time it will end in absolute, raving hysteria.

I am functioning, of course, as I always do, but outside of work I don’t have much left in the tank.  I’ve been asked to submit my expat story to another website, but I just can’t move on it.  I’ve got some personal blogs in the works that require a level of energy that I just can’t muster.  The way my house looks, omg.  You should see the meals I’ve been coming up with in my zombified state…when normally I’m a very good cook.

What do I do?  How do I start sleeping again?  I’m tired.  I’m so tired.

I suggest you all pick up one of these post-haste.  I could be coming your way at any moment.

The entire organization needs to be done away with.  Tear Wrigley Field down brick by brick.  I’m done with the lot of them.  This time I mean it.

I had been watching the VP debate, but Sarah Palin’s fake “folksy,” golly gee, I’m just like one of y’all speaking style made me so physically ill I decided to watch the Cubs game instead (btw, Ms. Palin, if you wink at me again I’m going to find you and gouge out your eyeball with a grapefruit spoon).

What a mistake. By the end of the game I felt as if I’d been refilling my glass with bile instead of wine. My phone wasn’t working properly, so I didn’t have the release of texting my commiserating friends. Although my heart’s not really in it, here are some of the things I shouted during the game (by the 7th inning I was too beaten down and weak to yell).

Warning: Some profanity

________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hate these people.

I am going to have a fucking aneurysm.

Are you KIDDING me?! You’re DERREK LEE!! You’re a fucking 3 time Gold Glove winner! No WAY! Oh my GOD! What’s WRONG with you people? Oh my GOD! Lou, what in the hell did you DO to them today?!

They’re playing like idiots.

Oh God, do we have anything to make shots with? I need a shot.

Lou, WTF?!

This is painful. Who are these people? What’s wrong with them?! Why are they DOING this to me? Why, God?

This is disgusting.

It’s not your fault, Carlos–it’s your team, they’re playing like idiots! Ignore them! They’re assholes!

The stupid crowd’s more fired up than THEY are!

It’s revolting. This is revolting.

Rally shot!

Thank God for Zambrano.

The DODGERS. I feel sick.

Fuck off, Torre!

Oh great. Fucking shit, another double play.

I hate this team. I hate this team. They don’t deserve to win.

I blame Lou. I blame the Cubs. I blame that damned goat. I blame everyone.

What a douchebag. God, I hate Manny Ramirez.

I feel deflated.

What is your PROBLEM, Lou? You’re not showing me anything–no pissedoffedness, nothing. Nothing! What’s WRONG with you?!

GOD, I hate that guy. Look at his stupid batting helmet–he’s only been on the team for a couple of months. You know he’s sitting there burning it with a lighter to make it look roughed up. He’s a turd. A big fat turd with dreads.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

After that, I lost all will to live. The next game is on Saturday and because I am a glutton for punishment, I will probably watch it; however, I’m going to watch it at Pinche Gringo’s bar. If I’m home I might destroy my television and then how would I watch CSI?