On Sunday Valentine’s Day came and went and we had a special dinner at Scotty’s.  I’m not really in to Valentine’s Day personally but there are a lot of people out there who are so we obliged.  I got comments on my blue dress – why no red?  I wore orange last year and decided black would probably be a bit too morbid.  Last year we did something similar and it was a success – a pasta dinner by candlelight and romantic love songs playing in the background.  This year we had a $20 BZD special that included pasta, bread, salad, a dessert and a drink.  Our first customers that day were friends from Progresso and they ended up staying to socialize until closing time which was fun.  We really didn’t have a lot of couples in overall but we did have a few groups of Belizeans in to drink – towards the end of the night the singles crowd came in for some dinner too.  Overall it was fun and successful but there really isn’t a lot to report about the event besides that.

After Valentine’s Day I spent a couple days in Progresso since it was my weekend from the bar.  While there I went kayaking in the dark for the first time – it was extremely peaceful even though my arms weren’t very happy with me at the end of the trip.  Kayaking on Progresso Lagoon is always a cool experience for the simple reason that there is never anyone else around.  It’s like having the entire lagoon as a personal playground.  I’m sure it won’t stay that way forever but for now it’s a pretty cool experience.

Next up on the agenda is a trip south to Punta Gorda, Belize.  I’ve never been there so I’m really looking forward to this trip.  We’re leaving on Saturday and plan on spending a couple days in Livingston, Guatemala which would mark my first trip to Guatemala too.  Hopefully I’ll have a ton of exciting stories to report when I get back.

It has been a bit of time since the last entry about Scotty’s Bar and Grill and it seems I left off at Valentine’s day.  My emotions were all over the place after I left Will and I am so incredibly lucky that I had my mom around me to help figure it all out.  She was very supportive with the roller coaster of emotions that erupted.  My immediate reaction was unfortunately to try and suffocate my emotions – this happens to be a very easy strategy when you own a bar.  I started to drink so that I wouldn’t feel, but I quickly realized that trying to smother my emotions was not the way to move through this so I just let the feelings come and go as they pleased.  It was a strange feeling to realize that my entire life had just changed and I really didn’t know what that meant, but over the next few weeks I started to really hold on to the feeling of independence that was surging through me with each day.  I immediately started to like myself more – not for what I had done but because suddenly my focus was on me and no one else.  It was what I needed because over the years I had started to become frustrated and hateful towards myself and I could never figure out why.  Now it was very clear that I had never given myself a chance to focus on myself – I was always concerned with everyone else.

About a month after all this I met someone and believe me the rumors started to fly.  Corozal is a very small town and gossip is like water to a lot of these people – they seem to need it to survive.  Well, this was big news in town; there had already been speculation that I was cheating on Will with another one of my friends here so when I left Will the immediate assumption was that I left for this other guy.  I grew up in a small town in Oregon so I was very familiar with rumors and how they can easily get out of hand, but this was something I had never witnessed before.  No one ever tells you about the gossip when you move to an expat community and it is a big negative.  I suppose it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, or at least easier to ignore if I wasn’t the subject of it for a few months.  Suddenly my mom and I were rumored to having slept with at least a dozen different people in town – how could we not have been, two women on their own here who are attractive enough?  Sarcasm aside, this was beyond frustrating.  So there I was, moving on too quickly for everyone else’s taste.  I had met this guy before Will and I split and there was a connection but I was still with Will; I met up with him again about a month after the split and we really hit it off.  Our chemistry was like something out of this world – I’ve immediately clicked with people before but this was different – I barely knew him but I felt as if we had known each other for years.  This totally threw me for a loop because my focus was supposed to be on me and suddenly here was someone else I wanted to be around.  I really didn’t know what to do but in the end I decided to go for it and see what happens because connecting with another person like that doesn’t happen that often.

Well, some of my other male friends who suddenly had become a little eager when I split with Will were not so happy about the news that I was hanging around with another guy who I really liked.  That’s when things started to go wrong with poker night.  Dave, who ran the poker night with us started to ask me with disgust why I would want to be with this guy – the insults and stories started to come out.  They all had something else to tell me about what they had heard about him (a person none of them really knew) and why he was no good.  My only option was to ignore them because if there is one thing that I have learned here it is that I cannot believe anything told to me about someone else unless I have first-hand knowledge of it since chances are it’s just a nasty rumor.  It really is a very bizarre way to have to live –sifting through all the bullshit on a constant basis.

Poker had been going on but mom and I had started to hear rumors that Dave was upset with us; it wasn’t clear why and he didn’t want to volunteer any information to us.  I would soon learn that he is a guy who cowers away from direct confrontation after the fact – he simply makes his scene and then he’s done with you.  So one poker night early last year everything was going as usual but there were a couple new faces that night.  Capt. J had heard about our place from a couple regular customers and had decided to come in that night.  He wasn’t a poker player but he just wanted to check it out so we met him early that night.  Unbeknownst to us Dave had been telling some people that our bar was his place – I really don’t know if he simply implied this or directly stated it but either way Capt. J was under the impression that the bar was Dave’s.  My mom met Capt. J first and straightened that out immediately which was a good thing since he had such a negative first impression from Dave that he was about to head out the door and never come back again.  Instead he stayed around the bar for awhile and mom and I both hit it off with him – it was clear that this bothered Dave.  Capt. J ended up leaving fairly early that night since he wasn’t going to play poker but later another new face turned up.  This time it was Andy, a Belizean friend of Dave’s.  We hit it off with Andy as well; he reminded us of a friend back home and was just an all-around interesting guy to talk with.  He bought me beer all night which I wasn’t about to refuse that night.

On poker night you can’t beat entertainment and alcohol because otherwise this is an extremely boring night for those who do not play in the game.  So mom and I decided we would sit at the table and watch the game, which we normally do not do.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time; then it happened.  Andy made a comment about a certain topic that didn’t sit well with Dave, why he brought this up I will never know, but he did and chaos ensued.  Andy started to use the fact that Dave didn’t like the topic to his ultimate poker playing advantage, or so it seemed.  Andy’s observations were hilarious and everyone was laughing along with everyone else.  No one else really chimed in but Andy – only laughing came from the other people around the table.  Dave was laughing along with everyone else although his laughing was a little more cautious.

All of a sudden Andy made a comment that Dave really didn’t like and suddenly it was no longer funny according to Dave.  So he looked directly at me and said, “Stop, I mean it.  That’s enough” or something along those lines.  Dave’s tone was deathly serious and this caused an immediate tension in the room.  It was extremely awkward.  No one continued on, mostly because we didn’t realize that he was so upset about it.  Andy extended his hand to Dave and offered an apology, which Dave seemingly accepted.

That pretty much ended the poker game for this night, but that’s not where the drama ended.  In fact, it was really just beginning.  I went behind the counter to start giving out money for the chips and then Dave comes up to the bar and demands a beer.  He is obviously not happy with me or my mom.  I didn’t say much about it and just gave him his beer.  Then I decided, in my slightly drunk state, that I would apologize to Dave for something I didn’t do, only because he was so obviously offended.  So I simply said, “Dave, I am sorry if I offended you in any way, nothing was meant to be offensive, I was only having fun.”  Dave responded shortly, “you were laughing like a f**king schoolgirl.”  I shot back, “Dave, I laugh all the time, especially when I’m drinking.”  Well, needless to say, Dave did not accept my apology and this infuriated me.  I don’t get angry often but tonight was an exception.  I was fuming and wouldn’t have been surprised if there had actually been steam coming from the top of my head.  I didn’t say anything else and continued closing up for the night.  I shoved Dave’s money at him, “Oh, you’re going to throw my money at me?” he snapped.  I didn’t say another word to him; I simply gave him a look that should have made him drop down dead.  At this point my mom could tell that I was angry and she told me that I can just go in the house.  I jumped at that and stormed out of the bar slamming every door I possibly could.

The rest is second hand information because at this point I was in the house trying to find something to smash.  This is a guy who has no qualms about laughing along with people at my expense and now he suddenly snaps when it gets thrown back at him.  I couldn’t believe that he was acting like such a toddler and that I had actually apologized for actions that I didn’t even take because this guy was a so called friend.  I can’t even begin to say how many times I have been made fun of in my own bar, all without malicious intent, but still made fun of.  I don’t take it to heart which is why it works, but one of my biggest pet peeves is people who can give it out but can’t take it.  On top of that Dave was actually acting as if he “owned” us and that is why he was so offended that we were laughing.  He wasn’t upset at anyone else at the table even though everyone was laughing at Andy’s comments.  So now my mom is in the bar talking with Dave and he starts in on her, saying outrageous things to her.  She struck back saying, “Dave, you are out of line and this conversation is over.”  She started to turn off the lights and iPod and at this point Dave stormed out.

After a few days I started to find the situation very comical.  I was done with Dave – I had apologized once and he didn’t want to accept that so there was nothing else left for me to do.  Mom, on the other hand, was taking this extremely hard.  She had considered Dave a good friend and couldn’t believe he wouldn’t even agree to talk about the whole mess with her.  Needless to say poker night would never happen at Scotty’s again.  We attempted to reestablish it but Dave’s part in the whole thing had been to get the people in and so they went wherever Dave told them to go.  It was a very good lesson for us; don’t ever let someone else be that big a part of anything happening in our bar.  Also it was a rude reminder that some people here will pretend that they are a friend with ulterior motives.

Valentine's Day at Scotty's

I am very conflicted about how to approach this section of my story in Belize. Between the Super Bowl party and Valentine’s Day earlier this year I chose to end my marriage with Will. I don’t want to go in to any detail about the events that week and I’m not sure that I want to write about any part of it at all. Even though the decision was made by me, the months that have followed have been a period of my life full of pain and learning. I have realized a lot about myself in the last nine months. The pain comes from grasping the reality that my life as I knew it for the last 10 years dramatically shifted in a new country where I hardly knew anyone to draw emotional support from. Suddenly my family – especially my mom who was the only one here with me at the time – became immensely important, more important than ever before in my adult life. It was also extremely hard to feel sad about the transition without feeling guilty that I was the one who broke off the relationship and therefore shouldn’t have the right to feel sad. I had to come to grips with the fact that I needed to be able to feel distressed about the situation or I wouldn’t be able to move past it. Immediately I felt numb from being responsible for hurting someone so much, it wasn’t something I was used to doing and in fact was part of the whole problem. I was so worried about causing pain that I let a relationship continue on that I wasn’t happy with and instead of confronting the situation I hid behind a fabricated sense that I was doing the right thing by not making waves. So instead, I became bitter about the issues within our relationship by letting them simmer below the surface. My first lesson after all this was that I had to force myself to confront any issues that I have head on despite being uncomfortable doing so. My own happiness was dependent upon that – just because something is comfortable does not mean it’s the best situation for your life.

Being in Belize made me see clearly how different I had become from the person I was ten years ago. The biggest realization was that I had lost my individual self over the past years, or maybe I had just stopped looking. Somehow placing myself in completely new surroundings, far away from any comfort zone I knew back in Oregon, forced me to realize how unhappy I actually was. It became so abundantly clear that I was not able to fool myself any longer. So I made a dramatic decision and after the initial shock I promised myself that I would push my limits as much as opportunity would allow. If I was going to make such a dramatic choice then it seemed to be horribly irresponsible to continue to live in a comfort zone. I was excited to be in Belize for this new chapter of my life because I was going to be completely stripped of any familiarity which seemed to make it a bit easier.

It was slightly ironic to me that Valentine’s Day was coming up in a week and of course, since we owned a restaurant, we would be throwing a Valentine’s Day party. I was not in the mood to say the least. Valentine’s Day had never been a particularly important day to me so this year I really wasn’t in the mood but we set up a table for just our friends and then other romantic-type tables for the couples who would come in. We put a special pasta dinner on the menu and played love songs in the background all night. A few bottles of wine later the party at Scotty’s was over and my mom and I, along with a couple friends went to a local night club to check out the scene there. Overall we did really well at the restaurant that night but I was very happy when the day was over.

So a new chapter of my life started up February of this year and I had no idea what the future would hold or what emotions would come up as a result.