Chapter 8. Tries hard

Yes, I am depressed. I try to feel better, really I do. I have always been one who “tries hard” – I used to tell Gregg to put “She tried hard” on my epitaph since it described me best for too many years.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. 

-a saying I grew up with

I’ve tried hard to do good and be nice. 

Storytime: this try-hard-to-be-nice story is from a 2012 trip to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, with Rebekah – who did the heavy lifting of translating and guiding. First stop is Cancun, where we’ve made reservations at an inexpensive hostel near the old-town plaza of the city.

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Upon arrival at Hostel Quetzal we explore the place and our room that is painted in baby blue and boasts three large windows overlooking a small but lovely garden area: I am pleasantly surprised at the privacy and artsy feel. From my previous trips to Latin American countries, I recall that toilet paper goes in the trash receptacle and water from the tap is not to be consumed. Thankfully the hostel has a purified water container available for its customers. 

We go down to the common space to get in on supper. Chips and guac are brought to our table: both taste amazing. We sit separately from the other 20 or so people, who are almost all 20-somethings, at tables in rectangular arrangement. After a bit, Jake and Cosetta come to our table and encourage us to join the group. When we clarify we’re fine where we are they stay and ask a few questions. “Where are you from? What brings you here?” Jake is to my right, Cosetta is on Rebe’s left. When it comes out that Rebe and I are a mother-daughter team, Jake reveals disbelief (and maybe embarrassment, reports Rebe, who was watching his face; she asserts Jake was hitting on me - recall it is evening and the light is low). 

After a time they go back to the large table. Shortly after, Wayne and his sister and her husband sit down at our table and we converse. Wayne does most of the talking – telling us about his master of numerous languages, his Australian travel, his turning away Christian girls when he reveals his belief that “visitations” are aliens not angels.

Kinda-crazy Wayne says to me, “You’re NOT older than me, right? I’m 35.”

I answer definitively, “I’m 54.”

“No way, you are not.”

“I’m a grandma,” I proudly retort.

Wayne, though surprised, is undeterred. He continues rambling about his certainty of reincarnation based on a dream he had, about his Aussie woman friend who died just two weeks ago leaving three kids behind, and much more.

When Rebe calls him out on the heavy conversation - aiming to quell his domination of the conversation and attempting to give me an out from listening to him - Wayne lights into her saying, “this conversation was between two people,” and accuses her of being rude. 

Rebe, to quiet him, acknowledges that she didn’t mean to be rude, and shortly we excuse ourselves briefly to check in with friend Reuben. Eventually supper of barbeque chicken wings and bacon-wrapped stuffed peppers is served. Along with the guac and chips, the food is excellent, in contrast to the conversation with Wayne.

When Rebe and I talk after supper, she reminds me I don’t have to so nicely listen to just anyone drone on about gibberish nonsense. This old mom has much to learn. The up side: we certainly smile every time we recall crazy Wayne.

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Important note: I am not always trying intently to be nice – of course I have a selfish side. One of those moments of putting myself first happened on this same Mexico trip after a long tiring afternoon in Puerto Morelos of sand, heat, and no running water in our "hotel" room. After some hours of requesting and hoping for a fix but with no desired result of water, we ask for our cash back, pack our bags, and move on. 

~~~

We walk to the roadside corner where the bus stops: we’ll ride to Tulum and find a room there. Next bus is in 30 minutes (or so) so we sit down at a nearby roadside stand and get some refreshment to hydrate and distract from the sweating.

Rebe asks, “Do you want a lemonade?”

I say, “I want a drink.”

Rebe brings back a lemonade and a margarita. We’d been sharing our food all along – both of us enjoying variety – but when Rebe suggests “I thought we could share these,” I say “I have to share?... ok, you can have a sip.”

We laugh. I share just a bit more than a sip (Rebe would say not much more than that though). And we decide the afternoon was win/win/win/win: quiet beach time, place to store luggage, able to move on to Tulum sooner saving a half day, and enjoyment of a roadside tall margarita.

We came, we saw, we sweat.

~~~ 

So, though certainly far from selfless (there are countless more examples of my selfishness), I do have a long history of trying hard, starting from my earliest “responsible” years:

•          I try hard in my teens: definitely an overachiever, I often am busy with two to three activities per evening during my high school years; choose late nights, early mornings, and full days of classes, band, choir, friends.

•          I try hard in my 20s: during the mid to late 1980s when three and then four kiddos were underfoot, while struggling financially and working numerous jobs and attempting to be supermom and supportive wife, I battle mild to moderate depression. I didn’t like calling it that back then; my journaling labels those feelings as sad, unenthusiastic, tired, emotionally down, blah, hurt so hard, ungrateful. I incite myself to be more grateful, less selfish (“see in it a chance to die,” said Amy Carmichael), more disciplined, more reliant on the Lord (“I wait for the Lord, more than the watchmen wait for the morning.” – Psalm 130:6).

•          I try hard in my 30s: In early 1996, when in my late 30s, to feel better I try various approaches. I learn from David Burns’ Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy to record a situation, determine the emotions that accompany it along with the automatic thoughts, identify the cognitive distortions, and come up with a “rational response.” This is an attempt to identify the lies I tell myself: as a help for, as the back book cover said,  “controlling thought distortions that lead to pessimism, lethargy, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other ‘black holes’ of depression.”

You feel the way you think, the book proclaims.