Things happen. That’s all they ever do

Writing this vaguely holed up in our (pretty fine) hotel room in the larger than we’re used to city of Morelia, where I have apparently picked up ANOTHER stomach bug and yet Ian didn’t… Not sure wtf is plaguing me today but thankfully it isn’t nearly as bad as the one in Mazatlan.

Oh yeah, and Mazatlan… We were there a month ago, enjoyed the city – lots of sights, scenes, activities and athletic opportunities – and yes, we both got food poisoning. Now I’ve been alarmed to read about the scene going down in the state of Sinaloa. Although not really involving Mazatlan but the cities further way, still, there is something extremely vulnerable about travel. Think about it: You are a turtle, your shell is your car and that’s pretty much it. Without it, it’s all soft underbelly. I felt threatened, in a way that felt similar to driving through the Michoacan coast recently, where we were confronted by desperate villagers. I’m a stranger in a strange land. Nobody knows me here. I have skin in this game, literally nobody else does.

We’re travelling in a state known for difficulties with cartels and with the locals. Sometimes too much information is just that: too much. This weird vulnerability also makes me just terrible. I am not resilient, I fuss, I complain and I do not appreciate my adventure in the spirit of what it is: Adventure!

Every bad news bears email I get chips a little further away at my turtle shell. And I’ve gotten a few lately – nothing big, but in the state of constant travel, literally anything negative or bad or upsetting kind of starts feeling like the end of the world?!

• We no longer have renters (ok, this was 100% expected).

• Ian picked up a cold and wow did it really hang around.

• We got a parking ticket in Jalisco (joke’s on them, we’re not going back!).

• Ian forgot to pay a late-notice bogus ‘pet fee’ for an apartment we rented for two days, it was a small amount but yet he forgot, causing the owner to basically curse out his mother.

• My horse vet has had his cancer return a third time. I am absolutely devastated to hear that. To have that guillotine hanging over your head all the time? Just…there? I think I might feel a bit sensitive to his news because my colleague and friend had her mother doing chemotherapy for a reoccurrence of colon cancer and the news was very positive! Until her mother died when my friend was flying to see her for her own wedding. Like, she found out at the airport, it was that fast.

• My own horse board is going up, I found out the same day all of our camping gear got stolen in front of our hotel in Patzcuaro. Gee, thanks guys!

• It’s also going up when I am not going to be there to manage the cheques (yes, old fashioned). SIGH.

• I now have some sort of stomach bug. I am a total joy to be around right now!

The vulnerability I feel just sort of means the real world lame-o stuff just feels like it is hitting me harder than usual. Things happen, that’s all they ever do.