Nightmare Times

This nightmare weeks need to end. Sometimes I feel I'm living in a surreal horror movie. All my life I have been quite a trustful person, I believe and trust in others and like to think that people is good, of course sometimes we all do bad things, but that doesn't makes us bad people, just humans. 

For the very first time I had experienced the psicotic madness from close, and it is a terrifying feeling. The unsafety of your own home, the uncertainty, the fear, the loneliness. 

Someone broke in my apartment two weeks ago for the first time, they stole a great amount of money and used underwear. Doors were locked and nothing was forced. Friends came to check and we decided that the guy who did it had to have the front door key. My housemate Pascale and I changed the door lock right away. We ingeniously thought it would end there, how little we knew.

Some days after, her friends from France and Monterrey came to visit, so there was always movement in the house and it was almost never empty. One evening Rachid was alone taking a nap, all lights were off, one would think there was no one in. In between dreams he heard noise, quickly got up and saw the man trying to enter from the back door, opening it with a knife, Rachid yelled and run towards him, the thief jumped to the roof and escaped, you could see Rachid outside of my house in underwear screaming like crazy with a stick in his hand trying to catch him, it sure was a hilarious yet disconcerting scene. I was at the beach with some friends when Pascale called me to say the news, I jumped out of my seat and drove home as fast as I could, I was in shock. When I arrived they were all in the living room and it definitely looked like a movie scene. I called Fernando and he and his friend Vidal arrived right away, all the men inspected the house, jumped to the roof, yelled and stared at the neighbors. Everything happened fast and I was trying to catch up with what was going on. Pascale knocked at the landlord's house but no one answered, all the houses around turned off the lights and we were left alone. Fer and Vidal left, and then Pascale and her friends went to a bar. I was home alone trying to sleep, but with the tiniest noise I would get up and run to the window, all the lights were on and I felt the most vulnerable I had ever felt. I was half asleep and I heard the door opening, I was paralyzed in my bed praying when I heard Celine and Pascale speaking French, everything was okay. Any of us could sleep that night. I went to work the morning after, it was hard to focus and smile, but people distracted me and I almost forgot about it for a few hours. When I finished working, I picked up Vidal at his place and he helped us putting some new locks on the back door, there was no way this man could enter again. Meanwhile Pascale and I talked to everyone we know about it, desperately trying to find a new house to move to, hard task being this the highest season of the year in Tulum, there was nothing available. The days after were spent house hunting, we visited all the websites, called every real-estate agent, drove the town up and down, we looked in every corner and asked every person, even if we didn't knew them. We visited a house one day, it was spacious, bright and perfect, we were so excited about it until we found out the owner was family with the guy we suspect broke in and the landlords of our current apartment. It felt like a never ending story. But inside all this mess there was a huge light, which was even more powerful than all the darkness this man had carried on. We were never alone. I am so truly, deeply grateful for all the beautiful people who were with us during this, in all the different ways they could, offering their houses for us to stay, putting locks on the door, helping us find a new place to rent, or just calling to check if we were okay. It's ironic that the moments when you feel the most vulnerable and unsafe are also the ones that make you realize how loved and cared you are. 

A few days after I was at work when I got a call from Pascale saying that the front door clench had been forced, it was now broken but they couldn't get in, the locksmith fixed it right away but we were becoming more and more desperate and paranoid. We would put chairs and sticks and obstacles in front of the doors and the energy was becoming tenser in the house. It really was like a suspense novel, never knowing when this would end. I hadn't talked to my family during all this time, I didn't want them to worry but my mom and siblings had planned to come spend Christmas here and I was so stressed because we haven't found a place yet. Every house we visited had issues, either was papers, or location, or the landlords. Pas and I were skeptical about everything, and almost wanted the Chinese wall around. I didn't feel like myself, staring at everyone who passed by, panicking when hearing someone in the house even if it was just Pascale or any of her friends who were staying with us, one day I even put my scooter in the living room because I was afraid someone would steal it. Living like this is not living, and no one should ever feel like this. 

When Pascale’s friends left and we were alone, we decided not to sleep there anymore, it felt wrong. We stayed at friend’s houses and just went to our apartment to pick up clean clothes. A few days later I found a beautiful studio with the help of my amazing friend Damian, it has a terrace with lots of trees and coconut palms, a hand painted front door and a great creative energy, it’s cozy and stole my heart the moment I entered. I moved there as soon as I could, but left some big things in the other place because I didn’t have a truck to carry them. The day Pas went to pick up her things she discovered her key didn’t fit in anymore, we thought the landlords had changed the lock so the day after we arrived with police officers and my mom who was already here and pretended to be a lawyer, we were so upset and talked serious with the owner who was frightened and didn’t even know how to answer, we recorded everything and there was a point it felt so surreal that I almost burst into laughing. We arranged to go back the next morning, she insisted she had never changed the lock and had no idea about what was going on, that it was us two who changed it and that she never had a copy of the key but she would bring a locksmith and open the door so we could take all of our belongings. When we arrived she was nervous, and made us wait for about half an hour while she found the locksmith. The man tried both our keys and said the lock hadn’t been changed rather someone had put glue from the inside and that was why the key could get in, he kept telling us that there was something weird going on in this house and that he had been there a few months before for the same reason with the previous renters. He opened the door and fortunately all of our things were still there, but the locks Vidal had put on the back door had been removed. I had completely lost any faith in getting back the money I had been stolen but my “lawyer” mom talked to the owner about it and they didn’t doubt to return it without even asking the amount, just confirming they were involved in everything that happened in this house. We moved everything fast, released of finally finishing this crazy chapter. In the end it all was for the better, now I have a studio that I’m in love with, regained what I had been stolen and reaffirmed how important and powerful the love and care of friends is. And just like always, everything went back to normality.

(fifteen year old selfportraits)