Long Distance Relationships: ¿Valen la pena o me ubico?

[Today’s post is by Jessica Gutiérrez @Fresa_Feroz]

Last year I took a trip that I had been dying to take for such a long time. I bit the bullet and trekked into Mexico City. ¡Fue lo MAX! I loved it…all of it. The city life, the sights, mi cultura, the tequila, the food…everything was amazing. CDMX is a must see!

My best friend and I traveled and made arrangements for our 5-day trip. Upon arrival, we took an Uber to where we were staying…and we were dropped off at the wrong location. There we were…two girls, 11 pm, in the middle of some random street, with two big suitcases, in a city we didn’t know and spotty cell service. Que oso*. We called the one contact we had, a friend of a friend, and he picked us up and took us to the proper location.

Enter Pablo. Pablo is a friend of my coworker. He’s in his 30s and is one of the easiest going people you will ever meet. During our trip, he made arrangements for us to be driven around by his friend who actually works for Uber. Enter Allan. Allan, also in his 30s is a súper vida fitness kind of guy. Upon meeting both of them we learned that fútbol americano is actually pretty big in México. Allan plays for a team and Pablo owns a football club for kids between 4-18 years old. Both of them also play in intramural leagues when they get the chance. Enter la banda de amigos.

Since Allan was driving us from Teotihuacan to Coyoacan and everywhere in between, we spent most of our time with him…but not without learning about la banda. We spoke to several of them over Allan’s bluetooth calls but, we wanted to see so much city that we didn’t have time to actually meet all of them. I was introduced to the world of WhatsApp and added them to my contacts and before we knew it, our trip was over and we were on our flight back to ATX.

Enter trouble.

Pablo and crew would video call me when they were hanging out. Through phone calls and videos, I could hear some of them yelling a few things here and there. Pablo would joke that one of his friends liked me…and I would always laugh it off. Before the terremoto in September, I had asked the guys to send me posters for my classroom. They told me that one of the guys from la banda worked near one of the biggest poster stores in the city and to talk to him. So I did. We went from posters, to daily “buenos dias” to “me caes súper bien 😍 ” to “ya ven a verme, mi amor 💕 😘” Pablo wasn’t lying. This was the friend that liked me all along.

And here I am…at a crossroads. We’re in limbo. Is this worth it?

It took a while to get to where we are. We’ve been talking for a while now. We’ve learned a lot about each other. The mutual interest is there. The mutual desire for trips is there but neither of us has been able to make a trip yet. On my end, per my teacher vacation schedule – November was too soon. December was for visiting my family back in Brownsville. As of now, the plan is he is coming to Austin in two months and then we will travel together a little while before I come back home.

¿y luego que?

Do we take the chance and attempt the craziness of a long distance relationship? If we make this work, who’s going to eventually relocate? Yes, that’s getting ahead of myself and thinking far into the future, but I also feel these are legitimate thoughts, questions, concerns. After all, if we’re not willing to put ourselves in the best and worst of scenarios, what’s the point of giving this a shot at all? I think many of us have had heartbreaks – experiences that molded us into the people we currently are. We know relationships can be difficult…but distance seems like such a small obstacle when mirrored against the size of our happiness.

Que piensan…a long distance relationship ¿vale la pena o me ubico?

*In México, the idiom “que oso” is used to express “how embarrassing” as well as “ubicar” to express to “get a hold of oneself” or to “watch yourself.” Perhaps my next post should be a Fresa dictionary 😉