Searching for Viagra

My name is Veronica and I am a 50 year-old man. When I look in the mirror, I see a 29 year-old girl, with dark hair, dark eyes, olive colored skin, and round thighs. When I picture myself these days, I see a man, 50, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the inability to perform and yes, I do mean in bed.
For a man, his ability to get it up and hard in order to penetrate his woman is pretty much what defines his masculinity. He might make a lot of money, dead lift 250lbs, be tall, dark, handsome and even smart, but if he can’t get it up, he goes into this small box that no one has named, but contains all the “pseudo-men” who no one really considers a man anyway.
It’s sad really, that we would allow someone’s image to be defined by what is, most of the time, an involuntary muscle movement. But what is boils down to one simple caveat: IF I can’t get it up, THEN I am not a man. Well I’m not a man, and I feel like I am “not a man”.
For the past year, practically since I have been with my husband, I have had some sort of recurring vaginal issue that makes it seem like I have a fungal infection. It is an itchy, burning, swollen sensation that at times impedes me from even walking; not to mention having sex.
At first we treated for fungal infection, then bacteria, STD, fungal infection again, bacteria again, vaginitis, fungus, fungus….. I have been on more pills, douches, creams, ovules, suppositories, anti-fungals, gels, antibiotics and even holistic treatments than I would even like to admit. The problem is, that I don’t have a little blue pill that will solve my problem.
My mother has always said that the connection that a couple has, always boils down to sex. If the couple has a good sexual connection, then they can work everything else out. But what happens when, regardless of the connection, you simply can’t do it?
I started to have sex at a very early age. I became pregnant the first time I had sex, and, of course, that snowballed into a long-time of sexual panic. For years, I took pregnancy tests whenever my period as late, even when I hadn’t had sex, and since my period comes at about every 5 ½ weeks, I took a lot of pregnancy tests.
Whenever I would try to have sex, I would become so tense, that it was like virginity all over again. I couldn’t bring myself to have intimacy and really explore all the fantasies I had or even have a normal sexual relationship with any of my partners. Sex at times was so painful so often, that I even had a gynecologist recommend a hymenectomy. According to him, when I lost my virginity, it wasn’t done quite right (is there a “right” way?) and there were pieces of my hymen left over and those nerves ending at the end of the “shreds of skin” were what caused my pain.
Well, thank God for Cuban grandmothers and the fact that mine said that there was no way in hell I was getting one of those without a second and third opinion. I went to another doctor who told me that the first guy was a quack and that there was physically nothing wrong with me.
I thought that maybe there was something else, that I was in some other way broken. It became a bit of a personal challenge to me to have sex without pain. I had lots of sex. Not necessarily the good kind, I really didn’t go very deep in my sexual relationship with anyone. It was more like an exercise in trying on shoes than it was an actual development of sexual intimacy and skill with anyone in particular.
I thought that maybe, it was all in my head (it was) and that I simply couldn’t forgive myself for any of what had happened so many years ago. My mother told me, at one point during this period that I was simply not a very sexual person. Of course, that lead me to want to prove her wrong, so I just had sex with more people.
I can honestly say, I didn’t really achieve sexual intimacy with anyone until I was 25. I also, first fell in love, when I was 25.
It’s not like I had a life of non-sexual enjoyment until the age of 25. I enjoyed myself plenty. I enjoyed lots of facets of what I was doing and the things that I did, the people that I was with, but it was always the actual intercourse part that would make me freeze up on the inside and not be able to enjoy the rest of whatever went on.
When I was 25, I met the first person I ever fell in love with. Our relationship was crap. It was hard, and difficult, and he was a mess, and consequently, brought out all the dark and twisty parts inside of me, I didn’t even know were there. But for all his faults throughout the relationship, he was very patient with me while I became accustomed to him. It was like I was HIS personal challenge, and he won it, and I won as a consequence.
I no longer thought that I was broken or that I was simply incapable of having sex. It was the first time that I was able to be open about things sexually. Because of a series of other issues that dealt with problems outside the sheets, I grew to have very low self esteem, and because the sex was so good, I thought that the only person I could ever have a good sexual relationship with was him, this mere theory kept me around for a lot longer than was healthy.
After that episode, I grew the confidence I hadn’t had in myself before and was able to enjoy sex, all of sex.
Which puts me at today.
I am currently in a relationship with someone who has a lot of experience. Though I have slept with more people, he has had long and intimate relationships which I have not. So I already feel like I am at a disadvantage in the “something to offer” front.
I decided that I could probably overcome this fact. I decided that I wanted him to be the one that I was with, that I blossomed with, that I would be able to explore all the things I had ever been too afraid to explore: marriage, the world, my fears, bed…
But no matter how much I want a complete relationship, I have a big sign in front of me that says: DO NOT ENTER.
I have no idea what it is that is wrong with me. I feel like I am broken again, and warped and mutilated, that I will not be able to perform and make him happy, that he will eventually walk away and want to be with someone who has no problems, issues or difficulties.
He is sweet. He tells me he loves me and doesn’t care. That he will wait, that we will go and see specialists, that this problem hasn’t been around my whole life and that it won’t be around forever. I believe him, I also believe that people are human and that we all want to minimize the amount of problems we have in our lives and that if, given the choice we could trade out our complications in life for easier things, that we in fact would.
I am living in a house where people are starting to have romances; crazy, fun love affairs where they have sex on the dinner table and spend the day in bed; where 10 people from all walks of life sit around the living room having long conversations about sex and their exploits. Luckily, I was on a hike for this last one. When I came back, I wondered if my partner wished that he could be with someone who could actually bring to fruition any number of the things that had been said that night. I haven’t been able to have relations with my husband for a month, and before that, six weeks, and at one point, almost two months.
You figure that when you get married, all the sexual frustration and all the problems go away. You imagine that you can actually go in depth with your relationship and that you can slowly develop something very special. But the longer I have this problem the more desperate I get.
Today I broke. I walked in on two friends as they were having crazy and wild sex. And I had to run to my room where I proceeded to have an anxiety attack. I now fear that any act of sex will bring on another episode. Whatever is really and physiologically wrong with me is simply being worsened by my growing feelings of impotence.
I am 29 years old, and there is nothing I want more than to have sex with my husband on the dinner table. But I can’t. I can’t because it hurts. I can’t because I’m scared, I can’t because I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know how to fix it and I’m afraid that I might never be able to.
I have had ideas of praying to virgins and saints, of going to see a shaman of putting myself through a study. I wish there was just a little blue pill, one pill that I could take that would make me feel like I could hold up my part of my relationship.
Most of all, I wake up every day and look in the mirror, hoping to see a young, dark haired, round-thighed woman who has been married for less than a year and is still in her “honeymoon period”. Instead, I see a man, going through a mid-life crisis, who doesn’t even have the money to make up for it with a Porche.

Searching for why I’m here

I don’t know why I came to Nicaragua. Perhaps one of many reasons, perhaps as a test for myself and for my marriage, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of fear or perhaps just because I felt like I needed to do something drastic at that time.
I am sitting at a bar, confused and trying to sort some things out in my head and trying to get a little bit of perspective, but as we all know, perspective is a one-sided event.
A couple of days after I arrived here I remember being in the shower and wondering if we had made a big mistake in coming here. Today, dazed, confused and in search for words, I am sure about one thing: I’m happy I’m here.
Nicaragua wasn’t a long-term plan, like the Camino was, nor was it something that was really though through. It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment idea, or, as much as I can make a spur-of-the-moment decision anyway.
My patience has been tried, my body has been beaten and I have been proven wrong or misguided in these past two month more than a lot of times in my life, I guess it’s why I’m happy I’m here. I’m not sure that I would have a future in my marriage or even be able to get to where I want to get on a personal level without the challenges I have been facing of late.
I am learning how to say “I’m sorry”, “I’m wrong” and how to deal with my insecurities in a place that is as far from my comfort zone as I am willing to go right now. It’s not Sub-Saharan Africa, but it’s a start.
I probably should have begun writing about this stuff two months ago, but I have been busy with so much to do that I have had little time for reflection or anything else. At times it’s been about just moving, because sitting still has seemed a concept too difficult and too painful to actually bring myself to do so.
I came to a bit of a halt a few days ago, due to wet feet.
Probably one of the most meaningful episodes in my life has been the Camino de Santiago. All I had to do on that trek was to reflect. To feel exactly what was going on inside of me, to think to beat myself up, to grow and to learn.
I was worried because I hadn’t felt any of those thing on this trip. I was desperately looking for a reason to grow and to change, to improve on some of the big defects I consider I possess and perhaps become a bigger contribution to humanity as a whole, or at least to my marriage.
At QuetzalTrekkers, every volunteer that is fit for hiking does so. It is the policy of the organization that a volunteer will serve as an assistant guide until the bosses feel that they are secure enough with the trail, the procedure and themselves to be able to be in charge of a group of people. Of course, at that point you also have an assistant guide to help you along.
My turn came this past Saturday, when I was supposed to lead my first Telica trek. I wasn’t looking forward to it and really didn’t want to go, I had already done Telica four times in a row and was sort of fed up with it. Friday came and went and no one signed up, I though I was saved.
On Saturday, a whopping four people (our minimum for a trek) showed interest in doing on Sunday, and out of responsibility, but now without a little bit of whining, I started to prepare for what has been my first trek as a lead guide. I was going to had Paul as a second guide. I didn’t know much about Paul, but we shall now and forever refer to him as ZenGuide.
I was a nervous wreck, I mean, who the hell ever though that I would be any good as a guide to begin with? I’m terrified of snakes, terrified of making a mistake, am not the most physically strong of the hikers and certainly far from the most experienced.
All the Telica hikes that I had been on had gone on without a hitch. Well, that’s not true. On my first Telica hike, one of our clients got sick and I had to stay behind with her while she took five steps on a horse and got off due to nausea, held her head when she threw up and had to speak very strongly with her when she began to black out and wanted to go to sleep on the sandy trail.
I was reminded about my troubles on the Camino and remembered that I should have compassion with her, because, if her experience was anything like mine, she was going through one of the most difficult moments in her life. My feet were burning and all I wanted to do was cry and think about myself, but I got through it, she and I did, and the local man that we had hired to take the horse was one of the nicest, most patient people I have ever met, I swear, Ethernet is what makes us have little patience for anything that takes more than a few seconds, he told me not to worry that he had all day and that he would stop as many times as we needed. That man, Jose Rene, should be canonized.
But at the end of the day, it wasn’t my hike, I wasn’t responsible, and if anything blew up, there was someone else to pick up the slack. This last Telica was all on me.
I was almost on the border of a nervous wreck the night before the trek. I was running around, making lists, writing things on my hand, being very nervous and feeling like I was doing everything wrong. Paul did everything he was asked to do and then I had him go pack. Ricard had offered to help but I said I didn’t needed and then when I went to bed (I was so reved up I could have levitated off the bed) I asked him to, even if he didn’t want to, come to bed with me, he was awesome, talked with me for an hour til I calmed down, and help me until I fell asleep. I don’t think he will ever realize how much that meant to me.
The next day started out OK, I had meticulously planned everything out so that it would all be just perfect. The different amounts of money that I would need were divided up into separated piles depending on amount and use (the bus out, the meal we have at the end, the entrance to the park, etc…)
Rebecca, the assistant director, had given me some directions that should explain where I was at all times. And we took off. There were four clients and two guides, four boys and two girls. It all seemed to be going well until about 11am when it started raining. The first thing that I thought was: SHIT! My feet are getting soaked.
For anyone who heard about my troubles on the Camino you will remember that getting my feet wet is probably the worst thing that can happen to me. There was so much water in my shoes, that it squirted out through the pores in the fabric every time that I took a step. I WANTED TO SCREAM!!!!!
I thought I was lost for about an hour and it showed on my face. I had taken the wrong turn last time when I was training and I wasn’t sure of the path as I hadn’t really been paying attention when I had been in the back last time. And of course, at that moment you are kicking yourself with your water-sodden shoes and wondering why the hell you were listening to music, taking pictures or doing whatever the hell else you were doing that last time you walked down this path and weren’t paying attention. IDIOT!
Well I freaked out for nothing and got the clients nervous for no good reason because it turns out I was walking down the right path all along. Did I mention that it was pouring the whole time?
Well, I guess that I should be thankful because we got a 45-minute break from the rain while we had lunch at which point I took the opportunity to squeeze out about 8oz of water from my socks (cringe).
Our lunch was short lived and we had to get on the road right away as it started thundering a lightning heavily and we needed to get up to the volcano. For most of it, we were walking up a river and going against the current, it was really about two to three inches of water on the way up.
After stopping to pick up firewood, I realized that my poncho no longer fit over me, the pack and wood, so I threw it over my pack and tied the sleeved to my shoulders. As my shirt was red and my poncho was blue, I became SUPERGUIDE!!!!!!!! The eight-year old boy in me came out and I began to run around in circles holding my poncho like a cape and making trumpet noises from my mouth, and yes, I have pictures.
So we FINALLY made it up to Telica. But we didn’t get to see the lava. It was so smoky that we had absolutely no visibility. The draw of this whole trek (though it is beautiful) is that after an arduous trek up you get to see the stuff that is at the center of the earth. I had to tell the clients that it wasn’t safe to go up so that kind of sucked.
We went down and tried to set up camp. This usually would have involved setting up three tents, except, one of the tents was missing a ground sheet (the stuff that isolates you from water on the ground) and another was missing poles (THE STUFF THAT HOLDS THE TENTS UP!). We consolidated tents and luckily had enough to build two (usually we like to put two to a tent but ended up having a snug three per tent).
Then came the fire…
One of the clients, Elias, was adamant about making the fire himself. Except that everything was wet, the firewood, the kindling, the paper with which we might start it, even with all the kerosene that poured, NOTHING would catch! Then came SAINT TOBIAS.
Backtracking a few days…
A couple of days earlier, I had received a call at the office from a German guy who said that he was a low-budget traveler who could not afford to trek with us but wanted directions, I told him to come to the office and apparently, the asst director didn’t give him great directions. Somehow, he made it to where we were, and came to our camp, I recognized his voice and told him he had spoken to me on the phone. It turns out, Saint Tobias had been a German boy scout and informed us that in order to get a fire in the rain we should peel off the outer wet part of wood in order for the inner dry part to be able to burn, and then use the shavings as kindling (TAKE THAT SURVIVORMAN!!!!). Well , we went to work with four Swiss Army knives and manages to peel a bunch of wood. Meanwhile, I cooked on the camp stove (something at St Tobias also helped us start). And after dinner, we managed to start a fire, partially dry some of our wet clothing and even burn some of it.
Usually we are in bed by 8:30, but we were so cold that none of us wanted to leave the fireside. Finally, we (well Tobias) made a dome around the embers to dry the wood for breakfast and went to bed, three to a tent.
I was sharing a tent with ZenGuide (who by the way had been totally chill and confident in my ability to succeed as lead guide, he will be cool in my book forever) and Elias, and as at this point I had been wet for a good 12 hours, I was FREEZING, the boys spent half the night fussing over me, which was actually really sweet, ZenGuide put his sleeping bag over both of us and somehow, we survived the night.
The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 and made two attempts to climb up the volcano, but to no avail, we did not get to see lava as there was too much smoke.
After, St Tobias started yet another fire (this time without even trying as the embers caught on fire thanks to the fact that they had been protected by the wood dome) we had breakfast and took off.
The hike down was hard and I fell about 5 times (average for me) but the rain had made everything really slippery. I got us lost three times. Actually, not really, I took one wrong turn once and realized it five minutes later. But twice, I was so nervous that I was not going the right way that I walked back and fourth for 20 minutes and ran back a kilometer to talk to a farmer before I realized that if I would have continued a mere 100 feet I would have recognized the trail. I think that my worst enemy there was my lack of confidence in myself and my inability to bullshit in from of the clients, because the only bad comment I got on the feedback forms was a lack of confidence in myself. I can only do better next time.
So we made it back, through a downpour, a shortage of shelter, difficulty with fire, lack of lava, and wet feet. I didn’t kill anyone, didn’t really get lost, and am probably a little more secure in my guiding abilities.
Yeah, I am going through hard times, physical and emotional, my limits are being pushed every day and maybe I am fucking up enormously, but really, there’s nowhere I would rather be. I am meant to be here, I’m meant to fight, I’m meant to grow, I’m meant to learn and I’m meant to triumph, right here and right now.

Searching for the Right Mantra

I have always lived in the first world. Where you turn on the stove knob and there is heat, where the walls are closed, the shower is hot, the air conditioning is on and the TV is available, but this is not where I am now.

There is a mantra that I have been trying to tell myself on a daily basis simply for survival, one that I hope to be able to carry out eventually without thinking, one that will intrinsically become a part of me at one point, and will fight the years and years of habits that I will hopefully be able to correct. It is the right thing to do here and a better way to be. I find myself failing at it sometimes and immediately going back and repeating these words to myself, over and over again to see if they will stick in my mind long enough for the next time.

Those are:
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”

All my life, no matter what has occurred in the bathroom, I have cleaned myself and simply thrown the paper away under me and flushed to have it never be seen again. This is of course, because I have always lived in good houses, modern apartments, and places where the plumbing has come forward leaps and bounds in the past 50 years. Here in Leon, the houses are many over a hundred years old, and the plumbing must be from about the same time because it cannot deal with the multi tasking abilities of processing human waste and the toilet paper that goes with it.

I am so busy sometimes that I don’t go to the bathroom right away, so I am holding it in for a little longer than I should. I become desperate to pee. When I finally find the moment to run and get rid of the liter of water that I have consumed and not yet sweat out through my pores I am filled with such relief. It is only minutes later that I am consumed with dread as I realize that, again, I have wiped and thrown the paper down the toilet, without thinking, without contemplating and without noticing until it’s too late. If I have not peed and in fact have done other things, I am somewhat vindicated as I usually wipe multiple times and am able to correct my behavior with the multiple wads of toilet paper to follow their lost brother.

As I continue along my day, I am imagining my many mistakes, floating down the too-narrow pipes of Leon, creating stoppages that might cause eruptions bigger that the Telica and Cerro Negro volcanoes put together.

In 1992, the Cerro Negro eruption lasted for many days, raining ash on the city of Leon for a week straight. There were no casualties dues to the volcano itself, but the 5 centimeters of ash that accumulated on the flat roofs of the houses in the city proved too heavy for the old constructions and all the casualties of the eruption were produced by the caving in of roofs that were not designed for the extra weight. Ever since then, the roofs in Leon have been peaked, so as to not allow this tragedy to happen again.

I feel lucky that the roofs are this way now. As I fear the worst consequences from my inability to throw away the toilet paper in the correct receptacle. And forget me, how about the tourists? All the American, Canadian and European tourists who carelessly throw away their paper into the toilets of Leon, and who, unknowingly are creating the largest stoppage known to man, which might, if not corrected, one day erupt and cause the roofs of the houses to be covered in 5 centimeters of something else.

I’m here only for a few months, and I hope I don’t have to see a shit storm of that magnitude. I for one hope to do my part and one day automatically remember that I am here to help and not cause natural disasters. I hope to one day be at home again, where the only thing I have to remember when I go to the bathroom is to flush, because otherwise it might not be nice for the person who comes afterward. I hope to be enveloped by the nurturing of Charmin triple-ply with aloe and to never have to think of what I have done after leaving the bathroom.

I hope to go back and be able to read in the bathroom, and think about other things, to make lists, talk on the phone, play video games, file my nails or listen to music, but until that day I shall simply have to concentrate and keep repeating my mantra:

“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”
“The toilet paper goes in the trash can”

Still searching

It’s hard sometimes to realize that things change, childhood is gone, that your parents can’t fix everything, and that it’s really up to you to get through the day in one piece. And then the next day comes, and you forget a little again, because you want to forget, because it’s easier this way, I think we spend all of our adult lives trying to be conscious of the things we have learned and trying to forget them all at the same time.
One day, you have kids, and all of a sudden, it’s assumed that you have all the answers, like you know things that in reality you have no idea about, so, I imagine that you just start piecing together theories that sound good and hope that they make sense, and that you’re not damaging the lives of your progeny. But then, you’re still you, you still have no idea what tomorrow will bring, you’re still human and you still don’t feel like you’ve grown up enough or know enough to answer all the questions that other people have for you.
Do we ever stop feeling like children? When we’re old and wrinkly, don’t we still have insecurities, fears, questions, curiosities, I mean, as we get older, what actually changes about our perspective? Maybe nothing changes except experience, having fallen down enough times to know where our personal and communal potholes are.
Somedays I question how it is that I am allowed to play house, get married, have children (though I’m not there yet) pay bills and have responsibilities, there are days I want to do nothing, a luxury I will have only as long as I don’t’ reproduce.
And still, I wouldn’t go back fifteen years if someone paid me to do so. OK maybe I’d go back 20, and skip the six or so years of adolescence. I was wondering the other day what I would do if I had children, I decided that I would build my children a fort in the living room, made out of sheets and furniture, a place where they could play, dream and imagine life in a different way, the funny thing is that right now, I think that’s all I could offer my children.