Can't walk away...

Within days of returning to the US, I knew I wouldn't be able to mark my year in Merida simply as "that year I spent in Mexico." Not at all.

I don't expect you to understand-- not, at least, based on what you see in this blog. I stopped writing sometime in August 2006 when everything came to a crashing halt. It wasn't just my computer's hard drive and my health (a catch-your-attention case of pneumonia), as those would have been mere bumps. Rather, it was the demise and death of a friend in Merida followed quickly by the serious illnesses of two more close friends there that had me looking at life differently. Suddenly, I was living in a Merida that was entirely distinct and more three dimensional than what I had found up to that point. With so much death and recovery, I took to living.

And dancing. That's when I got to know Juan, a lovely Yucateco whom I'd met at the Merida English Library months earlier, and who had made a point of greeting me whenever we ran into each other. We took to dancing on a regular basis, and by the end of September, we had grown fond of one another.

There's a story behind all of that, and at some point, I'll post excerpts from that story. Which is to say that it has not only been written down, but it's been printed and sent in as part of the K1 Fiance Visa petition that we recently submitted to the US Government.

Yeah, Juan and I are getting married. :)