Costa Rican Backpacking
After four years in a foreign country learning a new language, a different culture, surfing and just enjoying life, I found myself in South Texas wondering how in the world I ended up here. I’d spent several days wanting to curl up on my makeshift sofa, staring at the wall and trying to block out any source of human contact. I had come face to face with toxic people and although I tried to avoid the problems they created, it seemed to seep into my life, like the way the odor of an overripe banana can penetrate even the best of Tupperware’s designs.
I was reeling, trying to restart life and find some sort of joy to take me away from my agony. A new life, new friends, who just couldn’t quite grasp the reality of my situation and did I mention South Texas? Gone were the days of walking out my door, hearing the sound of the waves beating the shore, a steady constant reminding me daily that there was some sort of epic goodness of sunshine and solidarity to be found in the water. Now I was left with an ocean of chaos and windblown waves that somehow receive a one-star rating on Magic Seaweed. Damn you, Magic Seaweed.
How do you start over when you’ve been a victim of toxic people? How do you get your mind over the mental injuries you’ve sustained? Do you know what I’m talking about? Those people who promise they are there for you, who beckon your friendship, yet in some way find that moment when you are weak, empty, searching for hope and they just crush you. It’s as if a web was slowly spun around you while you were ignorant of its existence, until you find that you’ve been entangled by the unforgiving tightness of the soon to be strangling ropes of their toxicity.
Is there a way to identify these people before it happens? That, I have not figured out, although I know that once you recognize the toxicity of the relationship it’s time to move on. Do not pass GO. Just get out as fast as you possibly can. Run, swim, pretend you’re dead if you have to. Just don’t look back.
This is where I stood, at the edge of looking back examining several relationships and where I went wrong. And this is exactly how I ended up on the couch. A slobbering mess, watching Spanish telenovelas and dreaming of the last epic surf sessions embedded in my brain. I had to come face to face with the fact that I was now in South Texas and although it may be a wind-blown, soupy mess I had to focus on the positives. Positives: There’s sunshine, warm water, and maybe if a hurricane materializes we can reap its benefits from an otherwise dangerous situation. There’s always cheap tickets to Costa Rica and overall really cheap place to live.
The positives may not outweigh the glories from the past life I had been living, yet I needed to just appreciate that the simplicity of life was more than enough to over compensate for the toxic people I had left behind. When you’ve been a victim of toxic people, at some point you just have to come to grips with being free of that pressure and focusing on the possibilities in the future. Those alone outweigh it all. You can go back to revisit those moments and wish you could change your decisions but it’s just not possible. What is possible is focusing on the beautiful sunrise, the dolphins jumping in front of the ferry. There’s always something that can be better than looking back, and that’s looking forward.
