I had a bad morning this morning. I read One Piece. I laid in bed. I jerked off in a hostel room because I rarely have moments so alone anymore and I frankly wanted some endorphins.

I finally disciplined myself to get out. As I rode down the Mexican bike path towards adventure, my brain was a uneven “meh”.

I see the Yucatan countryside, 8-10kms outside of the tiny town of Valladolid. My brain is barely convinced to enjoy the sunshine. I make it to the cenotes, somehow wandering in free because the guards are sheltering from the midday heat, but my brain barely notices, still wrapped in its own woe.

-

Cenote’s are places of religious significance. The ancient Mayans and Aztecs and many cultures before and after found them places to find fresh water, food, peace, and prayer. The reverence to these power places is apparent even as many are used for recreation over anything else.

When I get there, Cenote Kaa Pe is completely abandoned. The open overhanging cliffs look two dozen meters down to this pit. Huge trees grow from turquoise blue fresh water. Fish dart in the extreme slope of the underground riverbed, running shallow to deep and darker and beyond. The underground cave systems of the cenotes are immense, linking across the entire Mexico country. There are no above ground rivers in the landscape, only these yawing caves. From the bottom, the stalagmites drip from the rockfaces. Ribbons and ripples and waves of limestone, millions of years in the making. Art and nature and time make wonder. Birds and bats flutter from their nests. The occasional drip tumbles and plonks into the water below.

My narcissism is stirred from its depressive slumber.

A submission to the gods!

I read the only two of my own poems I know by heart to the unlistening cenote of Kaa Pe, an empty watering hole just a few feet from its more popular brother, Cenote Suytun.

It’s. What it is.

Good/bad. Whatever.

In the cenote, I didn’t find anything. No gods came crawling out of the rock face. No birds did any po-tweeting. The water stayed still. The sun shined. The trees treed.

God didn’t come to me, even though I asked politely, even though I was having a bad day and I coulda used the guidance, coulda used a sign.

If this story sounds stupid, it’s because it is. I’m blatantly yelling words I worked really hard for, in an empty empty tourist attraction cave in Mexico, hoping some deity above [or below or alien or dimensional or freaking whatever] would come save me from my own brain. Because it sounded “poetic” to me. I’m there because for 3 or 4 hours after a shitty breakfast, I laid in a dirty, uninteresting hostel, completely alone, unable to get out of my own head.

If this story sounds awesome, it’s because it is. I spent the remaining hours biking a collective 20 miles in the Yucatan peninsula to see four different underground water systems, swimming in all of them, seeing fish, and bats, and birds, and horses, and peacocks, and parrots, and iguanas, and army ants, and dogs, and cats. I ate cheese empanadas. I bought a cool shirt.

My life is objectively awesome. My brain has a tendency to not be objective.

You can’t run far from your demons. Trust me, I’ve really tried. They never let you get that far away.

Other people don’t owe me the fixes to my own problems. I should always reach out for help when I need it, but I also need to take my responsible actions first and foremost.

But you can always shut them up by getting out, doing anything, silly, stupid, ridiculous, useless, fun, helpful, for yourself, for others.

Inaction is the true fuel to loss.

Sometimes, I do have to sit in the delay. Browse manga and hentai in alternating order. Grumpy brain. Unyielding lethargy. Haze. Hate. Irate. Irritate.

But when I don’t, I’m the better person. Maybe that feeds my “protagonist problem”. But in all senses, better to be The Story then not at all.

Having my worst enemy be myself is hard. My other half is tricky and deceptive, sneaking up when I least expect it. I can be surprised by how often and disciplined my anxiety/depression cocktail comes back.

That to truly be stronger than my problems, I must find a way to be stronger than myself.

It’s the most challenging, but the most rewarding puzzle. And at the end, the only one that matters.

Here’s to you friends. Here’s to all the times you’ll fight battles. Here’s to all the times you’ll win. Here’s to all the beautiful things you’ll be along the way.

Much love,

Winston