I've never been an optimistic person. Anyone that knows me well can say that I am one hundred percent a pessimist. I have always been this way, from what little I can remember of my younger years, and I am fine with it. Some would probably say that I look at glasses of water as half empty instead of half full and that's true. My pessimism follows my gut and over half the time, my gut is right.
But not this time.
My husband landed a job in New Mexico at the beginning of May this year. I won't be disclosing exactly where but it was exciting. Since we first met way back in 2016, we had talked about moving out of Louisiana, to go somewhere new and experience new things. And while I was sad to be leaving my friends and the house that I brought Rusty to when he was first born, I was excited.
I remember telling Kam that if we didn't take this opportunity we may never get to leave, so he took it.
We packed up the house, or what we could of it, and rolled out two weeks later. Taking a 14-hour drive to Santa Fe, where we settled in a new apartment. It was exciting the first couple of weeks, like being on vacation and seeing some new place. I had never been farther than Dallas and it was like seeing something you never thought existed. The landscape was beautiful. The mountains in the background of the desert surround the city. The lights that floated in darkness like fireflies. The lack of trees and greenery, just flatness with brown "grass" that grew on it.
Also, no humidity. The air is stark dry and after a few days, we had to run to Target and get a huge thing of lotion to combat the extreme reaction our skin had to the lack of moisture in the air, but nonetheless. "I could get used to it here," was said often. Or "it's so beautiful," in return.
But the vacation ended roughly a month in and it began to be lonely. Kam worked from 7 am to 7pm and I was alone in the apartment with Rusty a majority of the time. And while I kept busy with writing my books and taking care of him, I was alone. Not physically alone as Rusty and Sadie were with me but alone in the sense that I had no other adults to talk to until Kam came home in the evenings.
The only places I went to were medical centers and the store and the only people I got to talk to, who were friendly, were therapists and medical staff. I dealt with it. I knew before we moved that that was a possibility and it never really bothered me, I was usually alone anyways.
What really did was everyone's attitude. Rusty's team was amazing, but they were pretty much the only ones. I'm assuming it is a west thing? The culture is so much different and I expected it, but I didn't think it would be this stark of a difference. There was no friendliness, no warmth, like in Louisiana. It was rather cold and off-putting; riddled with passive aggressiveness and impatience.
There is an arrogance there like the state is in its own bubble and the inhabitants don't believe anything exists outside of it.
A lot of assumptions were made as soon as we opened our mouths, one of them caused me to cry as they made me feel like a bad mother as I apparently "didn't seem too worried," about a possible diagnosis for Rusty.
There were often looks that told us that either they didn't understand what we were saying or we were stupid.
We were asked if we knew what a Frito Pie was. If "New Mexico" was getting to our heads for mentioning that we wanted a bigger and newer truck. "Jacked up" as people in LA would say.
We were told, "It rains a lot here in Monsoon season, you better get used to it." To which we replied, "it rains in LA about 150-200 days out of the year we already are! Don't worry!." We were met with silence and funny looks with no reply.
I am not downing the people of New Mexico. I am just stating things that happened to us and how people seem to react to newcomers. It is as if they don't want you here. Like you are unwelcome and they would rather you not be here at all. If you don't come from there or have that heritage they seem to isolate you.
It is one of the main reasons that has driven us to move back to Louisiana. That is on top of the fact that everything is super expensive and we overall just miss home and want to be near friends again. So in a day's time, we will be packing up the contents of our small apartment into a Uhaul and making the 14-hour drive back to Louisiana.
It was nice (maybe not so much) visiting you New Mexico, but this is a hard goodbye.
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