We are back in Mazatlán. We went back to the United States to see our daughter, Molly graduate Magna Cum Laude at Elon University in North Carolina. As wonderful as it was to see her and celebrate with family, we were desperate to come home. We did not speak of this but being back in our house, in our extremely ignorant republican town and facing our past was really hard on us. I can only speak for myself, but I know that being there made me feel an anger I haven’t felt in months. It was borderline rage. Anger from nowhere because of nothing in particular. Anger that just welled up inside and changed who I was. Rick and I slipped back into our old way of communicating and we began to fight. We lived that way for years trying to keep our company afloat. Trying to make sure employees were paid and the mortgage was paid.

We were surrounded by such anger and hatred that a man in a beat-up pick-up truck once yelled at me at a light that there would be a day that we would all die, meaning that us ‘liberals’ would meet our fate for not voting for Trump…They were gonna come get us’. Every man for themselves.  We drank daily. We doubled our drinking efforts on Friday and stayed that way until Sunday night just to rinse and repeat every week. Drown our worries, pretend that all was great and the liquid courage gave just enough to push on.

In Mazatlán we found space to breathe and fill our bellies with healthy food, feel ocean air and sleep in peace. We don’t drink nearly as much as we did and feel no reason to. We are relaxed and in a rhythm that makes sense to both of us even without the discussion.

We talk about going back in July to pick up a car and drive it across the United States…If in fact we can, we will but I am 99% positive our time in Huntingtown will be brief.

When the space we called home for 10 years now feels like a reason to leave, you know it just isn’t home anymore.