June Update: Travel Plans Cancelled

2011-06-01 15:35:32-04

About ten days ago, I was working on my laptop as usual in the wonderful Ah Cacao Cafe here in Playa del Carmen. At one point, I stood up from my seat and walked towards the restroom. And then I unzipped the zipper to my shorts as one would do before using the urinal. However, without even realizing it, I had actually unzipped my zipper before I even entered the restroom, while I was still walking across the cafe.

And then, it wasn’t until mid-urination that I happened to glance to my right and look in the mirror. While trying to make sure I didn’t have any brownie stuck in my teeth, I suddenly noticed the reflection of the bathroom door, which I had left completely open.

Sure enough, there were a few other customers who could see right in and all I could do was smile at them through the mirror as I carried on with my business.

Clearly, I have become so comfortable in this cafe that I forgot it was a cafe at all. I thought it was my apartment, where such actions wouldn’t really be so out of place.

After it happened, this small situation at Ah Cacao made me realize, not just how comfortable I’ve become at that cafe, but just how comfortable I’ve become in Playa del Carmen. Perhaps a little too comfortable.

CHANGE OF PLANS

Originally, I had written down that small tale because I planned to use it in order to illustrate my need to take a break from Playa del Carmen, to travel somewhere new, even for just a short period of time. Usually, the only way that I can survive living in one place for many months in a row is to make sure that I take such small breaks every now and then in order to keep life fresh.

This is why, in my original post, I was going to blurt out something like, âWell, as luck would have it, June is full of travel plans for me!â

But, and I must warn you that this post is about to take a drastic change in tone, I won’t be writing anything like that any more.

My exciting post about my travel plans for the month of June is no longer.

And it all began when I knocked a large glass of lemonade onto the keyboard of my laptop the other day. The situation then become worse when I sliced my finger wide open while cutting up a tomato a short time after.

As my computer proceeded to die a slow death and the blood dripped from the gash in my finger, all of my plans fell apart. Actually, my plans didn’t exactly fall apart because of these two relatively insignificant incidents, but these two incidents forced me to realize that I needed to take apart my plans myself.

The year that has been 2011 has so far been a wee bit more challenging than I had been expecting. It seems as if every week has brought with it some unexpected situation that has left me with no other choice but to change my plans on a moment’s notice or rethink the decisions I’ve made. And naturally, the result of so much instability and confusion is spending a great deal of time wondering why all of these things are happening and what I need to do to change the situation.

THE OLD PLAN

Had all gone smoothly, I would be leaving in exactly one week from today to spend about six days in Vancouver, attending the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) Conference. In fact, I was so sure that I was attending this conference that Anil from FoxNomad and I decided to give an informal talk about our recent trip to Iraq on Friday, June 10th at the Persian Teahouse in downtown Vancouver.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to TBEX anymore. And now I must admit that I’m the ass that has backed out of this talk that we had planned, leaving Anil on his own. But believe me, this was a terribly difficult decision and I wouldn’t be backing out of this if I felt I had any other option.

Here’s the original invitation: Pre-TBEX Iraq Talk

Hopefully Anil will still be going ahead with the talk and I highly recommend anyone in the area to attend. As many of you know, our experience in Iraq was unlike any other travel adventure either of us had ever had and this talk is a great way to gain some further insight on what it’s truly like to visit this region.

Apart from the talk, I also began making plans to meet with specific bloggers at TBEX, bloggers who I’ve previously only communicated with online but who I would be absolutely excited about meeting in person. And then there are all of you I’ve met before and who I would have had a chance to spend more time with and gotten to know a lot better.

I’m not lying when I say that I was really looking forward to TBEX, as far as the socializing goes.

And then I spilled that lemonade on my laptop and sliced open my finger.

As a result, I realized that now is the time to sort out 2011 before it gets too late. My mind has been far, far away from the present moment in recent weeks, leaving me in a daze at times, one that has sucked the energy from me and made it almost impossible to concentrate on anything.

Something is just off right now. And I’m taking my distant state of mind and the accidents that have occurred as a sign that I need to find out what is wrong and fix it. And the sooner the better.

This is why I’m skipping out on TBEX. I need to deal with these challenges, do some serious thinking and put my life back in order. Bad timing indeed but necessary nonetheless.

So, I’ll be sticking around the Playa del Carmen area instead, heading off on some short trips to various places in the region in order to clear my head and take whatever steps I need to take to get back on track.

(Remember, I’ve never said that being a permanent nomad is easy!)

AN APOLOGY

The point of this post was not simply to provide a (non) update of my plans for the month. I am also fully aware that the state I have been in has had an effect on others. I’ve had to break or cancel plans more times this year than I have in the last 10 years combined. I’ve also been unable to confirm my participation in certain events that need confirming or I’ve gone back and forth like a child, one minute saying I’ll be there, the next minute saying I can’t go.

So to all of you who I’ve done this to lately, I honestly do apologize. This isn’t like me at all, and by taking the first half of June to concentrate on turning this year around, I hope to solve my current inability to make decisions and return to my normal self as quickly as possible.

And that transformation will hopefully begin on Friday with a much needed visit to one of my favorite places in all of Mexico, the laid-back and colorful colonial town of Valladolid.