Day 43: Not So La, La, LA

This kind of outfit reminds me of where I came from: a family where one often wore red tights with a leopard-print leotard and clear jelly shoes. We didn't care about matching or formality, only attitude and personal expression. Of course, you could wear this dress with high gold sandals, too, but why do that when you can wear bright green, reptile-print heels? In my defense, there is green in the dress. I'm calling this one, "A Lot goes a Long Way," because you can never have too much of a good thing--especially great colors.

Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha travel to LA to get away from the drama of home. Carrie's column has people interested in making it a movie, particularly Matthew McConaughey. He offers to play the part of Mr. Big and blurs the line between acting and reality when he offers to take Carrie to bed. Carrie turns both him and the movie down. Samantha meets a dildo model and tries out his goods. Miranda, after getting passed up for a more scantily clad woman, decides to embrace her inner sex object. After a few beers and cheers, she rips off her shirt in an LA cowboy bar. Charlotte is still no closer to making love to her husband, despite a ten-day honeymoon in Bermuda. After a little over-night, paper around package experiment, she discovers the problem isn't physical but emotional, which leaves her with a much bigger challenge.

This episode mostly deals with how we handle being alone--how we pick up the pieces and try to move on from disastrous events. Hank and I were just talking about this yesterday before watching the show. A friend of mine from work recently got dumped by her boyfriend of two years, who asked her to move all the way from Virginia to live with him. Though she has been here for only two months, he said she just didn't adjust to life here soon enough. Now, in a city where she knows no one, she is having to find an apartment, start a new job, find some friends, and deal with a breakup all at the same time.

When this girl didn't show up for work on the first day, I thought she had quit. When she came back the next day, she mentioned (tearing up) what had happened. I immediately told her we would go to lunch, and she could tell me all about it. I had only met her twice before, but I felt an immediate need to do whatever I could to help this girl. After all, it had happened to me only two years earlier in Peru. After she finished telling the story, she asked me what to do--whether she should stay here and try to make a life for herself (which she was leaning toward, though she didn't know why) or go back to the east coast, where she would have friends and possibly better job prospects (and no ex boyfriend to run into downtown).

It's not too often that I could say this to someone, but I told her that I knew exactly how she felt but that I didn't know what she should do. I told her I had stayed when a similar thing had happened to me. It had been the loneliest time in my life, but I was glad I had done it. I briefly told her about the Peruvian boyfriend who begged me to drop my life to move to his country and learn his language, only to dump me two months later. I had to break up not only with him, but also our by-then mutual friends, all of the places we had gone together, and his (which had at least superficially become my) family. I also didn't speak the language very well and couldn't call my family in the States without incurring a huge phone bill. Like her, I had to decide whether to stay or go back home.

When I told Hank about talking to her, he asked me why, really, I had stayed. He said he would have gone back to Montana in a heartbeat. I thought about it. There were a few reasons. First, I was an emotional wreck and wanted to make a decision in a more stable state. By the time I waited until the hourly crying sessions were over, I didn't feel the need to escape Billy and all that reminded me of him. Second, I had made a sort of life for myself. I say sort of, because it was just a few odd jobs and friends here and there, but they were hugely important to me. I had a piano to practice on daily for four hours, was teaching two kids English and piano and teaching myself Spanish, and had met a few very nice Peruvian acquaintances and fellow Americans around the city.

Third, and most importantly, I wanted to form new associations before leaving Peru. I'm a big, what I call, "re-association person." By that, I mean, if I have a bad memory of something, I try to make sure I form a good memory with it before moving on. More than falling in love with Billy, I had fallen in love with Peru. I loved the food, the culture, and the air. There's nothing so fresh as air at 11,000 feet. I knew that if I left it then, when I was hurting so much, I would always think of Peru with pain and fear. I would want to forget it as soon as possible, like a bad dream. Not only would I probably never visit it again, but I would also never want to talk about it. I'll never forget something my father said to me during that time, which really gave me the strength to stay. He said, "You know, Cath, you went there for a reason, and I think you need to stay until you figure out what that is."

As it turned out, I found an apartment, started exploring and appreciating the city on my own, and took a lot of long walks to just think. I wrote for hours every day--even if it was mostly bad poetry for the first few weeks. I even forced myself to drink Billy's favorite tea, which had also become my favorite tea, just so I could eventually remember the tea for the good memories it gave me of being strong on my own. A month later, I had met another guy, Jorge, and we moved to Lima. There, I found three jobs, all teaching English, and discovered a whole new urban side to the Peru I had come to adore. I went to the beach by myself, found myself speaking Spanish all day without problems or reference books, and even started running again (much more accepted in the progressive capital than in traditional Cusco). Jorge taught me about Latino music, slang, and traditions. I learned where to buy books in English and what never to eat. All in all, I created a life for myself there.

Now, the house Denver is surrounded by Peru. Hank's and my tablecloth dons the bright colors of Peruvian dyed wool, and we have figurines and art from the country in our living room. When I think of that place, I am filled with a warm sense of peace. It is a love affair I hope will never end, and I know that it has nothing to do with Billy or any man. It has to do with me. It was where I grew up--learned to be my own person in the world and learned that I was okay even if I was alone. I became my own greatest friend in Peru, and it's all because I stayed.

My cousin and I were talking the other day. She had a bad ending to a long relationship, right before she met her current fiance. We decided that it's good to go through such an awful break up--one that shakes you to your very core and makes you reexamine your entire life. Without that experience, it's hard to know how strong you are in love. You discover that no matter what happens in a relationship, you will not die and you will be okay. It's information you can only gain on your own, you against the world, even though it's hard.

I didn't tell all of this to my work friend. It is a decision she must make on her own. Not all people want and need to process things in the same way, and she may not love Denver the way I loved Peru. She will do what is best for her, as we all hopefully learn to do.

I hope you'll be back. I will.