Lima, It's Been Two Years
I'm getting itchy feet
Two years ago today, I moved back to Lima. As I wrote last year, I’m still not one for anniversaries. However, this one seared into my mind when I looked up the exact date of my La Guardia-Fort Lauderdale-Lima flight in 2024 for my upcoming podcast and the realization that I had been living here, more often than not, for close to two years induced an existential panic spiral. The emotional weight of that fact was such that it refined my entire podcast concept. What had been a nebulous idea of maybe doing something about Peru suddenly came into sharp focus. I needed to explore this existential crisis: What the hell am I doing it here and when the hell am I going back?
Not much has changed in my Peruvian life but there’s been an internal shift. Last year, I chose the word “bifurcated” to describe how I felt living in Lima, for my intellectual and emotional life were still so tied to the United States even though my physical one was undeniably here. Right now, I would say I feel stuck. Exiled, in the most self-imposed way and with apologies in advance to anyone who is actually in exile for mandatory reasons. Why my liberation has curdled into something that feels like being grounded by the cosmos is the result of enjoying myself a little too much in New York last fall only to come back to Lima and have so much of my income dry up that I can barely afford domestic travel. I had wanted that fall to be a preview of my ideal bicoastal life and now I fear it was an extended goodbye party. At this moment, I have no idea when I’ll be able to go back to the US even for a short visit.
On the other hand, I’m no fool. My ability to live it up in New York (by that I mean affording a solo sublet and grabbing the occasional drink in a Bed Stuy dive) was only possible because it was temporary and I was in the midst of a massive freelance windfall. If I were to go back right now, I’d be sharing a hovel with 5 other roommates, splitting one bottle of wine on a stoop, and looking longingly at Oh Mary tickets that I could not splurge on. It was nice to visit Fantasyland, but like Brigadoon it disappears real quick.
I still abide by the three-year template of moving around, but now with some addendums:
Year 1: Everything is shiny and exciting, but you feel lonely because friendships are tenuous. Addendum: Still pretty accurate.
Year 2: You have a thriving social life but the city’s charming quirky peculiarities transform into the norm, at best, or nuisances, at worst. Addendum: I have no thriving social life. I do know a lot more people, mostly through friends of friends, Democrats Abroad, the tiny comedy scene and my boxing gym. But we do not hang out. My list of nuisances is becoming intolerably long.
Year 3: Time to get going. Addendum: In order to get going, I need an exit strategy. The question is, do I want to invest in that exit strategy? A strategy that would require in-office full-time work, perhaps in a city I don’t want to live in, for pay that would still make me feel underwater in the States?
I don’t want to go on about all the things in Lima that irritate me because it is still a much easier life, in many ways, than what I left behind. Every time I do something a little out of the ordinary, whether it’s taking a day trip to Callao or attending a local theater production, I count my lucky stars for having Peru—at least this version of a very privileged Peru—as an alternative. I recently came across a reel that showed the average income of the top 1% in Peru and I’m very close to being considered one LMAO. I’m probably top 2-3%. The only reason I’m so financially strapped is because I have a lot of very American debt that is syphoning away my bank account. When I think of the amount of financial stress I experienced in New York, my stomach tenses up. Whatever I do, I refuse to go through that again.
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But still, the prospect of staying here forever, without extended stays elsewhere, without the option to move back to my fun little life in places like Chicago or Brooklyn, without even the prospect of backpacking for a few months across other corners of the world haunts me.
I am a social creature. I don’t have many friends here and I come off as prickly in almost any social situation I’m in. It’s disheartening to live in a city where everything that made you charming in the United States—Dark sense of humor! Opinionated! Slightly cynical worldview! Zero filter! Delicious need to gossip! Intellectual snobbery but applied to Housewives, how dare I!—is a total turn off, to both foreigners and locals alike. My good friend Nadine left Peru earlier in the year and hanging out with other expats can get awkward real quick when you realize they spend a large chunk of their time venting about the trials and tribulations of living in Peru. Which I get! Except that they usually have the most ignorant and out-of-pocket analysis for it! It wouldn’t kill them to read, I don’t know, at least one postcolonial thinker or a JSTOR article about the Cold War and its effects in Latin America! I occasionally meet very cool Peruvians, even get their contact info, but am constantly rebuffed when I reach out to grab a coffee or a drink and no one likes to come off as needy.
To be fair, I’ve also met some lovely people and I’m doing a bad job of following up to their advances. This is high school all over again. Since one crowd’s rejected me, I’m convinced everyone will so texting someone “Hi, want to grab a drink this weekend?” becomes a high-stakes psychological game where the only one who wins is the location-specific social anxiety I only experience IN MY COUNTRY.
It would be easier if I had kids. Everyone with kids has a robust social life. A woman in her 40s without them has no space to go and meet other people in their 40s who have drank from the fountain of eternal youth lol.
I’m not dating in Peru. My most memorable interactions with men this past year have been yelling at a Neo-Nazi (from New York), yelling at a MAGA-hat wearing bro (unclear where he was from), and having a Peruvian man walk off mid-sentence after I told him I didn’t respect people who used generative AI. It’s probably for the best. I’m afraid any dude right now would have a destructive West Wilson effect on me and since I’m no Amanda Batula, I need to focus on rebuilding my life.
And despite everything, I think I am. Truly. I spent so much of last year wondering if I was going to lose whatever space I had carved for myself in the US writing world but dare I say, I’m actually making even more inroads. I still feel connected to it, probably because I have a couple of upcoming publications, one Very Cool Program acceptance, this newsletter and my podcast. Do I wish I had more of a presence in the writing community here? Yes. I’ll keep showing up to readings and asking people out for coffee (they’ll say no) and maybe even take a workshop. But it’ll take time.
Facts:
I still miss my personal space.
I still can’t afford to move back.
I still have time to figure this out, but I do want to figure out.
My entire podcast hinges on this question: Should I stay or should I go?
More updates on that project soon but for now you can check out the Instagram page and the minty-fresh Patreon page! Patreon is where the bulk of my podcasting updates will live. Yes, there’s membership tiers but you can join the community for free. All membership tiers except one include subscriptions to The Cranky Guide, in case that matters where you show your support or sign up. This month, I’m offering 15% off four tiers when using the code 41A2D.
Thanks, as always, for digging my work! I feel honored that you would spend any time reading or listening to me.
Aw I miss Nadine too 🥲