Y Yo Sigo Aqui — My 2020 Accomplishments
The year 2020 has indeed been a ‘special’ one in every possible sense. You know the way you call someone’s child ‘special’ for all the wrong reasons… 😆
My January literally started off with panic attacks in a house full of dog shit.
I had accepted a dog-sitting gig in late 2019 as I wanted to bridge a low-income period with free rent. Sometimes that’s the exciting life of an entrepreneur. I found out pretty soon, however, that this kind of living situation wasn’t what I wanted for myself OR the dogs and one day in January I gave in to the overwhelm of having to lock up three dogs in a small apartment and moved into a nice little Glamping spot outside town.
Still struggling financially I pretty much paid the rent there weekly or sometimes even daily, oftentimes going to town selling personal items (no, not THAT one) in order to be able to do so. It was quite the opposite of the (for me personally) very stressful dog situation. The place was the most quiet one imaginable for a busy tourist destination such as Playa del Carmen. Basically nobody was staying there long-term, except the people living in the nearby apartment complex who also had the liberty to use the pool and BBQ area.
Somehow I managed to squeeze in a super budget trip to Guatemala for a long-weekend in late January. It was a bit of everything — a business trip, a visa run and also visiting a good friend and celebrating what probably went down in history as the most improvised Bavarian White Sausage Breakfast EVER!
Struggling myself all the way into February I very much hit another emotional rock bottom on Valentine’s day, still having a slight crush on someone I had spent the most amazing 24 hours of the new year with when she snuck me into her all-inclusive resort in Cancun.
Seeing all the happy couples not only on social media, but also on site at the Glamping, obviously didn’t make things any better. Yeah sure, go ahead spending your romantic getaway in the cabana right next to me where I can even hear him pleasuring you at night…
All the loneliness made me give tinder an actual shot and, oh boy, was I surprised to get my first match on Valentine’s Day 2020. She was 22 and thus a whopping 15 years younger than me. She arrived at the glamping at around 11pm, totally drunk after having been to the cinema alone, watching some Marvel movie. The fact that she had already blocked and unblocked me on WhatsApp once in the few hours we had been writing beforehand should have probably told me a lot, but hey, I was desperate.
A few days later, firstly still being broke and secondly, with my mother’s 60th birthday coming up on the 28th, I did give in to her wish and accepted her booking me a flight to Frankfurt so I could attend her party. I wasn’t really keen on going to Germany during the winter plus arriving there with no money in my pocket as my motto usually is: “Stay for a week maximum, eat all the delicious food and get the hell out of there!”
I got on the plane against my better judgement and already had an instant eczema outbreak on the plane. Yaaay!
Since I never intended to stay there for too long, I already booked a flight over to Scotland, from there to Brussels and back to Mexico for later in March. Shortly after my mum’s aforementioned birthday I went to Madeira with her for a quick getaway and that’s when the flight cancellations started kicking in.
After re-booking the first cancelled flight to Glasgow and receiving another cancellation email, I quickly realised that Scotland was not going to happen this time around and that my return to Mexico also had been in danger and so I panic-booked a second flight to Cancun for the 18th of March whilst my original one would have been on the 23rd.
I never bought into the whole covid fear mongering and I honestly thought that I was just going to party on in Mexico whilst the rest of the world would be doing ‘its thing’. The thing I was actually scared of was being stuck in Germany in a toxic living situation during a full lockdown and so I did end up flying to Cancun on the 18th of March from an almost deserted Munich airport. I honestly believe this must have been one of the last if not THE LAST flight, before the whole world came to a halt.
Going straight back to my favourite glamping place, I was able to celebrate my birthday in early April with a BBQ pool party before Mexico also announced a lockdown. Within a week of my return to Playa del Carmen pretty much everyone I knew had left. Most people went back to their home countries and so I found myself as the lone wolf yet again. The only one who went completely against the trend. Well, if there is anything that my times on European football terraces have taught me then it’s to stand my fuckin’ ground! Also, from a business point of view, I knew that if a lockdown was going to happen there would be bankruptcies and that in every crisis there is opportunity.
Having turned into what can best be described as a non-functioning alcoholic during the first few weeks of lockdown, at least I finally had some time to get my divorce settled. Something I had put off for over two years although, or probably because, it was amicable with no disputes whatsoever.
But just like it was hard enough for us to get married in the first place, considering all the bureaucratic hoops we had to jump through, it was almost equally as hard to ‘get out of it’ again. I’ll surely be thinking twice before having the government involved in my love live again!
It sure does make for a great story though. I mean, who else can claim to having had problems getting divorced, because the lawyer they hired decided to use their soon-to-be ex-wife’s mother’s address in Sao Paulo for reasons of sheer convenience and when the judge requested a proof of address for both parties involved there was a slight problem, not only because neither one had lived at this address for over a decade but also the fact that the actual owner of the property was a notorious drug lord who got killed ‘on the job’ and thus it was a bit hard to get in touch with him. Maybe the fact that the house had been built rather semi-legally in what is widely known as an area where police don’t even bother entering did contribute to these difficulties as well since there weren’t any utility bills either.
In the end we did get successfully divorced on the 15th of June.
And just like the first half of the year wasn’t crazy enough, the second half actually put one on top…
After moving around several cabanas within the Glamping during approximately two months of lockdown that felt like an eternity I had moved into an apartment on 5th Avenue in late May that, after the first month, I already could not afford anymore and so I moved another two or three times within the following 6 weeks. At that point I must have lived in about twelve to fifteen different places in less than a year in Playa — a place I came to, NOT TO BE a nomad anymore.
In late July I then moved into a place that was meant to be long-term. A nice third floor apartment with a private rooftop and the most comfortable mattress I had ever slept in! Initially I signed a 3-months contract and, believe me, committing to a place for that long after almost 3 years as a nomad was the weirdest feeling ever.
About a week later, seeing that the apartment underneath mine had also been empty and with more and more places re-opening after lockdown, I struck a deal with the landlady and rented mine, as well as the other apartment, for a whole year. One of the reasons I had come to Playa in the first place was the idea to open an Airbnb and keep it as my own Caribbean home base.
The cherry on top seemed to be the fact that I kind of stole the second apartment from a couple who had ‘stolen’ my last apartment from me. What? Nevermind. My life is crazy AF in case you didn’t notice by now.
It was a little win that didn’t last long, however. Having paid the first month of rent and my deposit, plus buying lots of things for the apartment I was looking at exactly zero bookings after the first four weeks. With almost immaculate timing I also lost £1200 over night when the the forex-bot that was paying my own rent crashed and so I quickly found myself with only one apartment that I barely knew how to pay for.
I did always manage to come up with the cash somehow, mostly by liquidating more and more crypto assets and sometimes also thanks to my family. I sold the rest of my gold I was carrying around and even managed to fly across to Florida for two weeks and made some cash helping my friend to paint her house.
Somehow I had imagined my life outside of Corporate Insanity way easier than this, especially after the killer year I had in 2019, but I still wouldn’t go back to a 9–5 job for all the money in the world.
Having just arrived back to Playa from the sunshine state in late September, I was minding my own dog gone business and trying to fix the complete financial mess I was in, but mother nature decided to crown 2020 with not one but two hurricanes AND two tropical storms over the course of like five weeks. The neighbour’s palm tree collapsed onto my driveway (off which I took the liberty to harvest the fruits to make myself an açai bowl), half the town was flooded and, one time, the power cable literally blew up outside my window and I was without power for the better part of two days. Cooking dinner on a gas stove with candles on is quite fun but not being able to keep the food refrigerated… not as much!
Enough craziness for one year you would think. But behold, we’re only in mid-November of the year that will undoubtedly go down in history as the most *insert random swear words here* one and be taught about in history class for generations to come. If public schooling survives much longer, that is.
I obviously did not quite manage to fix my perilous financial situation with the planet deciding to be on constant PMS and so I ended up booking a flight to Germany in what I can now only describe as a state of mental derangement, because from the minute I had booked this flight I hated my guts and fell into a depression-like state and I felt the panic attacks waiting just around the corner. I had, yet again, acted out of fear and completely against my own intuition. Something that I had promised myself (after the whole dog situation earlier in the year) I would not be doing anymore.
On November 21st, the morning of the flight, I woke up with an old Paulina Rubio (Mexican singer) song in my head. “Y yo sigo aqui” — (And I’m still here). First I didn't give it much attention but I did realise that I was nowhere near ready to leave the apartment nor to fly right into a German winter. Deja-vu much? I did, however, go ahead with the plan like the good little German I had been trained to be and also because someone had already put down the deposit for my apartment.
About half an hour before my then-neighbour would be driving me to the airport I sat in front of her apartment, completely broken, after just returning the keys, emptily staring at the packed suitcase in front of me. A million things other people recently told me went through my head. “It’s the best thing to do right now.” “It’s only temporary.” “You’ll be safe there.” “You’ll see your family.”
But just as I was the only one who came to Playa when everyone else buggered off, this wasn’t the time to listen to mostly random strangers’ oh-so responsible advise either, because my gut clearly spoke a different language.
“Don’t. Fucking. Do. It.” Or something along these lines. But surely not “Go and spend a horribly cold winter with your abusive wannabe-stepfather in a locked-down country with zero economic opportunity.”
The only person outside of myself I would be taking advise from in such a peculiar situation was the person who would be the most happy one to seeing me in Germany but who also didn’t even know I was going to come. Imagine her surprise when I called her and said: “I was going to surprise you tomorrow with a bag of Mexican chillies but I can’t, in good conscience, get on the fuckin’ flight I booked…”
Her answer was the only thing a truly selfless friend could have said: “If you don’t want to come, don’t come!” I don’t call her my sister from another Mister for nothing!
My neighbour was already waiting at her car to ship me off to the airport and I must have said something along the lines of: “Sara! I’m not going. I’ll rather sleep at the beach tonight than to go there!”
Sara, being one of the very few people in Mexico who would not only understand but usually also reciprocate my dark humour, didn't care much for what I was gonna do. “I’m going to park the car again, no problem. Just make a decision.” Another great example of non-interference in my decision making that I had some clear issues with. I was probably hoping that someone would make the bloody decision for me but it wasn’t gonna happen. Both people I had spoken to encouraged me to make my own decision and didn't bother to interfere and so I went with logic. The flight had been booked. The bag had been packed. My mum was expecting me and so I went to the airport after all.
I’ll spare you the exact details and the following 2 hours of drama and inner conflict that was going on inside of me and fast forward to the point where I just topped up my UK phone in order not to be without internet when I would land in Germany. The boarding call came and I stepped inside the plane, still convinced it wasn’t the right thing to do. “Y yo sigo aqui,” I remembered. But it had been too late at this point. I acknowledged that my decision-making sucked and took my seat. I didn’t even have a free seat next to me as the plane seemed to be almost fully booked and so I was (not) looking forward to wearing a mask on a near 10-hour flight in a cram-packed plane to a place I didn’t want to be.
Speaking of masks... I hate them. I usually don’t go into places I have to wear one and if I can’t avoid wearing one I just quickly use my bandana and get the hell out of there ASAP.
In this instance, when standing up to get something out of my hand luggage in the overhead locker, my bandana slipped down and as you can probably imagine, the first steward came at me like a vulture telling me how important it is to wear a fucking mask at all times. I obviously knew that but little did I care and in a moment of pure clarity I said: “I think I’ll be leaving this plane again.” Not really out of sheer confidence but not only was I trembling and had difficulties breathing, I also just realised the pure torture I was subjecting myself to. It didn’t take them long to involve another steward AND the pilot himself after I stated that I had difficulties breathing and couldn't promise to wear that thing AT ALL TIMES for almost 10 hours.
When the pilot said that, given the circumstances, he would not take me along on this flight I felt a bit of anxiety for not knowing what to do or where to sleep but also a deep sense of relief.
And then it dawned on me that I had made the decision long ago but I had yet to understand it.
If you don’t know what you want, think about what you don’t want and take it from there. In this case I did not want to wear a mask for 10 hours as this goes against everything I believe and, honestly, I didn’t want to be in Germany either. That whole struggle a few hours earlier was a clear indication of it.
I don’t know if I would have had such a big problem wearing a mask if I had wanted to be there badly. In this case, however, what I didn’t want clearly outweighed what I thought I wanted.
As I had just learned proper decision-making from a space of personal integrity I was sitting in a little office, waiting to get my immigration papers back and eventually ended up taking the next bus back to Playa where, after being denied a couch space by my friend’s landlord BECAUSE OF COVID, I ended up back at the Glamping where I was eventually offered an apartment that I accepted with no hesitation.
Mind you, we’re still in early December and there would have almost been a whole month of fuckery and shenanigans left in 2020 but apparently it ran out of ideas and so I didn't get the alien attack that I had predicted earlier in the year.
To sum it all up, after a short trip to Europe, two cancelled flights and panic-booking a third one, meeting an absolute (15 years younger) lunatic on tinder, one lockdown, several failed businesses, a successful divorce, an estimated seven places I’ve lived in, two hurricanes, two tropical storms and getting kicked off a plane for the better, the year ended quite pleasurable with the sickest pool party I have ever witnessed. Powered by tequila straight from the bottle and starring an actual 18-year old porn star who had, by the way, also recently gotten a divorce.
All in all a total success.
Y YO SIGO AQUI…
Bring on 2021!
