Hasta la próxima, Vallarta - Gracias por lavar mis penas (Until next time, Vallarta - Thank you for washing away my sorrows)
At the beginning of this new chapter, I felt called to return to where my journey to Mexico first began, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.
Back in June, I came here for the first time, needing a break from the chaos that had consumed my life. The previous year had been brutal. I had spent months trying to save someone I loved, someone I had known for twenty years, from their addictions. As an emergency medical provider, I was used to helping people in crisis, but nothing prepared me for the kind of helplessness that comes from watching someone you love hurt themselves and others.
When they lost their job, nearly went to prison, and we lost our home, I did what caretakers do best: I tried to fix everything. I drove them to my mother’s horse ranch, all open skies and silence, then to rehab. They lasted one night. I kept believing love could be enough. It wasn’t.
After one final devastating act, everything I had built collapsed. I was left with the ruins of a twenty-year friendship, a broken heart, and a body weighed down by the symptoms of complex trauma that had once again resurfaced.
So before I sank completely, I booked a flight back to Mexico, this time alone.
Returning to Vallarta felt like stepping into a warm embrace. The air smelled of rain and salt. I reconnected with familiar faces, swam in the ocean, and had slow conversations with kind strangers who forgave my imperfect Spanish. One evening, a bartender refused to let me leave until I learned to salsa. Most nights, clouds gathered over the bay, and the same summer rain I remembered from June began to fall - steady, cleansing, familiar.
By the end of the week, I felt lighter. The ocean had done its work. My mind quieted. My spirit softened a bit.
Next stop: the Chiapas Highlands, San Cristóbal de las Casas (7,200 feet/2,200 meters), a place that had appeared to me in dreams long before I knew its name.
Hasta la próxima, Vallarta. Gracias por lavar mis penas.
