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.
Back to the Scotty’s story…
With the new year also came some bad news about the gym I was working out at with Leroy (trainer). Leroy didn’t renew the lease on his building which meant the gym was closing. This was horrible news because it had taken a lot of time just to find him and get in a regular routine. Mom and I had been doing great at our three workouts a week with him and now we would have to figure something else out entirely. Leroy did offer to come train us at the house, but I was really paying a membership for the equipment so we decided against that. There are two other gyms in town so we went out on a mission to find another one. One of these gyms was actually pretty nice with some fairly new equipment and a lot of space, the fee was reasonable too so we thought we were set with a new workout facility. After taking an initial look we decided to go in for our first workout the next morning. They had posted hours until 9am in the morning and then closed until 5pm so we decided on 7am – early but doable. We got all our gear on and made our way to the gym. Still a little groggy since we are now on “bar” hours, we pulled up to the gym and it was closed – we were pretty irritated after getting up earlier than usual but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. Later we learned that those posted hours weren’t the real hours (of course) and they actually only opened from 5am to 7am so this gym was out too – I was not going to wake up at 5am to workout. So we were going to have to figure out an at-home workout – this would prove to be a difficult habit to get in to. My first step was to purchase a punching bag in Chet – I already had my boxing gloves here and since I was missing my training from back in Oregon it seemed like a natural workout transition. The key was actually holding myself accountable to stick to a schedule.
Back at the bar January brought in our first profitable week which was very exciting. It wasn’t an enormous profit but still a profit and poker night was proving to be one of more beneficial days. Each week we seemed to get a few more people in as well as keeping customers who had been in before. Things were looking positive.
We were starting to become pretty good friends with Dave as a result of all the time we were spending with him through poker nights and he also was coming in to the bar on a regular basis outside of poker so he invited us to ride along with him to Spanish Lookout (a Mennonite community in Belize), he was taking a couple clients there to look at window and roofing materials. Will didn’t want to go but mom and I decided to take him up on the offer since we really hadn’t seen any other parts of Belize besides Corozal. It is about a 2 1/2 hour drive each way so we had to leave early in order to get back in time for poker night. So we woke up around 5am to get ready to leave at 6am. Dave was early of course and I wasn’t quite ready so he had to wait but we still left 5 minutes before we were supposed to. I thought for sure I would sleep on the way there but I did not so I was happy about that since I wanted to see the scenery on the way there.
We stopped about half way there for coffee and by that time I was ready for some breakfast…we weren’t eating until we got to Spanish Lookout though so I had to hold on for a little while longer. Spanish Lookout is a town that is very spread out and agricultural. Mennonites are very predominant there so you see a lot of horse and buggies out. The Mennonites are pretty much self sufficient there, and they keep things very tidy. There isn’t any garbage on the streets like there is in Corozal and everything is so green. It actually reminded me a lot of Oregon except for the palm trees, there are even hills!
Because things are so spread out we had to get directions for each stop that we needed to make (which was only two). First we stopped off at the restaurant to find that they weren’t open yet but would be in a half hour so we decided to make our first stop the window place and then go back to eat. We finally made it back to the restaurant and I was really looking forward to breakfast but when we got inside we found that it was set up as a lunch buffet. I guess this makes sense when the community wakes up at the crack of dawn. I was a little disappointed but I got over it quickly because the food was outstanding.
Our last stop was at the local dairy (Western Dairies) which has a little ice cream shop as well. We wanted to try the ice cream and it was exceptional. I had coconut, very delicious. In Corozal the Western Dairy ice cream isn’t as good because it melts on the delivery truck up there and then when it re-freezes the consistency isn’t the greatest. So it was a great way to end the trip – as you may imagine ice cream is a hot commodity in Belize.
We had planned to stop off in Orange Walk on the way back which was great for Mom and me because we needed to buy a few things at a grocery store there which is much larger than anything in Corozal. They have a little better selection of items in Orange Walk and our car is not trustworthy enough to get us there safely so we don’t get there very often. We all stopped at a little bar first and had a drink each. Everyone was a little tired at this point. Orange Walk is an interesting town; it is very cluttered and hard to get around. You don’t get the beautiful bay there so it gets a lot hotter and you don’t get to see the water like you do in Corozal. The New River does run through Orange Walk but I would prefer the bay any day. Despite this there is a lot more available in Orange Walk. After the beer and grocery store we really were on our way home to host another night of poker.