Twenty years ago, I impulsively went to Mexico: Winter was full of snowstorms and ice and a broken heart, and my pocket was full of just enough cash to pay for a trip to a sunny, sparkling beach, so I went. The first evening of that trip, I found myself dining at a table of young Americans and one young Dutchman, an English-speaking island in a sea of German pensioners.
For a week, I snorkeled and touristed and drank bottomless blender drinks, and when I got home, after an exchange of long letters, found I’d replaced my lost love with a new one, The Foreigner.
For twenty years, there were too many memories to return to that spot, so we simply went elsewhere in search of sun when we had the money, and nowhere when we didn’t.
This year, though, an idle conversation with a coworker led to a recommendation of a resort which led to a travel website and an impulsive return to a different spot in Mexico that promised to be as beautiful as the one before, and certainly as sunny. There wasn’t enough cash to pay for it, but there was more than enough credit, so instead of waiting until the tax refund arrived and it was too late to reserve a trip, I planned the trip and hoped there would be enough to cover everything.
I told my coworker I’d booked a trip there, and he seemed pleased that I’d taken his suggestion. The Child was not pleased, but then again, in mid-October, before the hospital and psychiatrists and prozac, there was not much that was capable of pleasing her.
By the time February rolled around, she was excited to go: All the other kids have already been to Mexico.
By the time we arrived at the resort – after two lengthy flights and one lengthy shuttle bus ride that was made even lengthier when the driver was pulled over and ticketed for driving a vehicle on a pedestrian-only street – she was thrilled.
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