"Would you go back?" change the past or return to a physical place again?

Relationships, writing and El Salvador

The porch of Palestra House, overlooking San Salvador, El Salvador, as I prepare to start writing; it is day three of juice cleansing

“Would you go back?”

I was sitting in a chair facing a camera at the Adopting Bitcoin Conference. Marius, a filmmaker, had asked on stage at the Mi Premier Bitcoin Conference the previous day, to talk to people who had moved to El Salvador. I went out of my way to find him. I love it here and I wanted to tell people about it because it is good to have options and so much of the media regarding what is happening here seems tainted to me now.

Then, I had taken Sean’s public speaking class, attended Toastmasters for a while, and have the book I am working to birth that will need to find its way into the hands of those for whom it is intended. I figured it is good to get myself out there a bit and tell people about my blog, and the baby, the baby book.

Jacqueline Rendell

, a fellow author on Substack, had interviewed me here a year before. After that interview, I criticized myself badly and told myself I forgot everything I knew about public speaking. I told myself I could have done better. I could have stayed on topic and wandered less. And the truth is, I always wander. You know that if you read my posts. Plus, I will lay blame on Jacqueline in the best way possible as she was more like me: intuitive, interested in the energy of things, and thus a catalyst for me to drift into an altered realm from which I attempted to speak.

Now I had a second chance. It started well until maybe it didn’t. I am not sure. I was tired from the conference, from so many conversations with so many people, and from some intense and unexpected experiences this past week with a new young friend who taught me about the plans a few people have for world domination and symbology. And I care. I care so much about so many things including what is happening in the world and here in El Salvador.

A few days before, a young woman had popped into Soya where I was having lunch with Sawyer, my housemate. She made a beeline towards me and asked if I would be in her Tic Tock video. Now, I have actually never looked at Tic Tock. Wasn’t it banned in China? I have become more and more allergic to social media. But something about her touched me. She seemed a little shaky and highly enthusiastic. So I said yes. She plopped her phone on the table in front of me, hit record, and asked me to talk about what it is like to move to and live in this country, her country, that she had just returned to from the United States.

And so I started talking. I was on point. I said what I wanted people to know: that I have an alternative doctor here, that my health insurance is great and costs about $180 a month. It covers me in the US when I go there as well. That my insurance agent had me come to his house to sign the paperwork and how cared for I felt sitting at his dining room table with his family. They all spoke English. I told her about the juice cleanses I buy from Elixir. Three days of juice, nut milks, and “shots” of vinegar, lemon juice, chlorella, turmeric, jalapeño, sea salt (not all in one shot), are delivered to my door and numbered in the order I drink them. This costs just a little over $100 for the “Feel Wonderful” cleanse. I was starting my second cleanse in two weeks. I am contemplating doing it every week or so because I feel so great.

I told her I had my temporary residency and am applying for permanent status just a year later, with the help of my English-speaking attorney, and now friend, Vanessa, from Estudio Vortex.

I mentioned I also bought land, with Vanessa’s help, walking distance from the beach, in a highly sought after area for what I think is a good price.

As I finished, after looking the cell phone camera confidently in the eye for (I am proud to say), probably less than five minutes, without wandering into various stories, she asked: “Can I try a bite of your food?”

She seemed to want to make this part of her video, and not just because she was hungry. So, I ignored my initial response and went with my intuition. “Sure, but you’ll have to get your own fork.” Why not promote Dr. Luis’s restaurant as well? I was on a roll with things.

It took a minute for her to find a fork (and I took the opportunity to proudly pull out one of my Spanish words and called out to the friendly waitress that we needed a “tenedor” please). After dislodging it from the napkin wrapped tightly around it (which honestly is not easy), she filmed herself scooping up some tortilla, sauce, and vegetables with a bit of egg and confirmed for her audience that yes, she liked what I was eating.

So, all that felt like a strange kind of win in some way.

But then, as so often happens when I talk to people, I learned a little more about her. She texted me later and asked me not to share her story, so I won’t.

But, the end of it all is that I am glad we connected, and she is struggling. There is a famous government official who is part of her life and I seem to meet such people frequently. El Salvador is a small country. Last time I was at Soya, shopping for groceries, I met Max and Stacy (if you are interested in Bitcoin and El Salvador, you will know about them as they are part of the force leading the charge for adoption in this country). I imagine it is unlikely her video will every make it to Tic Tock, due to said government official, who doesn’t seem to like President Bukele (and maybe videos of happy people moving here talking about how safe and wonderful things are), and that’s ok because our conversation was more than just words and made me think about how excited I am about the medical legislation Dr. Kruse wrote which has been submitted to the assembly here and how much help people may be able to get soon that is not available in other countries.

Now I was with Marius, who is making a documentary on El Salvador, and I wanted to contribute my story. A repeat of that Tic Tock video would have been perfect. But I didn’t do a repeat. Somehow, I veered into what really brought me to El Salvador. At one point, I was talking about my ex husband and his job as a cell phone chip designer, how he had passed away… I often was staring off into space away from the camera, where such memories and emotions lie, which any EMDR therapist would have been happy to point out to me.

I went on and on until I took a breath and he asked me that question you and I started with here: “Would you go back?”

Of course, he meant to the United States. Trump just won and lots of so-called “Bitcoiners” are celebrating. Sure, there are some

Christopher Cook

-type anarchists here. But in general, people at the conference were celebrating. It didn’t hurt that the price of Bitcoin had almost doubled recently and so even if all the naysayers in their families still didn’t understand it, it was validating. People like to be validated.

“Would you go back?”

And I really didn’t know what to say.

I am going back to the United States. Actually, the day this is published, I will be on a plane headed to San Diego. And I am not especially excited to leave. I am happy to see my family, my dear friend, pick up a lot of supplies I purchased, and hike my favorite trail at Torrey Pines Beach. But I find it difficult to go to the US now and there is nowhere I feel called to live in the entire country.

But I would never answer a question without room to change my perspective.

I was at an absolute loss for words. Why didn’t I say the simple thing? The thing I just said to you. “Maybe.” But I couldn’t because the answer, the real answer, involved so many things. I just couldn’t find words to describe what I have been learning about decentralized societies, secret symbols, religious cults that seem pervasive and attempting to form the world in a way I am not resonant with, and the edgy place I am in living in a mansion that I don’t want to leave that is only temporary. That I am looking for more than a house or a country. I am looking for a lifestyle, a sense of community, care, security, and interesting people with ideas they feel free to share with me.

The truth is, the question bored into my soul like a drill bit and it went deep.

Then there was the other part of me that listened from an even different place. That part wondered this: Would I go back in time, if I could change myself and make different choices?

There is a room downstairs in the mansion that has lights by Chroma set up that produce red, near infra red, and opsin stimulating Cyan, Violet, and Deep Violet frequencies. I sensed that the set up was expensive and despite not educating myself well on what the different lights do, I have trotted down to stand in my tan-through bikini in front of them almost every day. Here in El Salvador, there are not only “Bitcoin Maxis” but “Mito-chondriacs” who come here for health and healing. The Mito-chondriacs who follow Dr. Jack Kruse love light, especially red.

Last night, I decided to look at the website where they sell this particular version to learn more about what I was exposing myself to. I had already read a book downstairs on red light therapy by Marc Sloan, which confirmed that standing in front of those lights was probably a good idea. Plus, I sensed the color of my hair was changing slightly. When a woman at the Adopting Bitcoin conference walked up and noticed the same thing, and then started talking about melanin and how hair changing color was a good sign and part of a healing process, I figured again, that I was doing a positive thing. On the website I discovered that the same set-up would cost me around $6000 and since I can treat myself with it for free, I plan to continue (and may switch things up as a new arrival is bringing different lights soon…that he assures me are the best).

But, all that is me wandering a bit as the main thing I wanted to tell you is that the room also contained three books. I finished two already. The one on red light therapy, and one of futurism (which I wasn’t so sure about). There was only one left, and it looked rather random to me. It was called Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky. I haven’t finished reading it yet.

And the truth is, it tempted me because the lights have motors in them that are loud. Then, the only way to really get good exposure to them is by standing in front of the contraption holding them. So, I have done so for about 15 minutes on each side of my body, (for a total of 30) like a Turkey basting itself. The website informed me that I may have been really overdoing things as it suggests just a few minutes is fine, and that less is often better. But that information arrived too late for me and since my hair seems to be changing, I am gung ho to keep going.

The noise makes it hard to focus on listening to anything (as I had been trying that for days) and I needed something to occupy my time. That’s when I spied book #3 and decided to pull it off the shelf in case I could prop it up on top of the wire lit cage roaring in front of me. As I opened it, a receipt fell out. I didn’t think much of it, but I glanced down to see if it was important.

It was from a jewelry store. One that specialized in diamonds.

There was a name on the receipt and the name matched a young man I knew.

I also knew a story about him that fulfilled a lot of my Prince Charming fantasies. I think it may have been Dr. Kruse at the Bitcoin Farmer’s market, who told me this story and I am not sure. The story went something like this: there was a girl the young man loved, who was marrying someone else in another country. I don’t know why she wasn’t with him and was headed to wed another guy. All I know is that he told Dr. Jack Kruse that he loved her, and Dr. Jack Kruse told him that if that’s how he felt, he should get his ass on a plane and go fetch her.

So he did. I believe she had already just gotten married, and nevertheless, she returned with my young friend, Prince Charming. I met them both and liked them a lot. And now I gazed at this receipt.

It seemed private (God help me if anyone who cares reads this) and incredibly touching. So I started reading the book and stored it and the receipt in my room, until I could return it to the young man.

The story in the book is very similar, so far, to the young man’s story. Except in the book, the young man goes back in time to fix things before the girl gets married.

“Would you go back?”

As I faced the filmmaker a lot of things were running through my conscious and unconscious mind.

You see, the other part of all this is that the working title of my book is this: I Want a Divorce: Losing Everything and Finding Yourself.

And I am going back, and slowly sifting through things I lived through, bringing my constantly changing perspective to it all.

There are painful moments in life when we change. It is not always easy to become a butterfly. But the transformational journey, in my view, is one of growing the complexity of one’s soul, like an upward moving spiral.

So would you, would I, want to go back and do that differently?

I think the answer, at least for me, is “No! of course not!”

You and I are who we are exactly because of all we have been through. And that is a beautiful thing, even when it may have been, or currently is, excruciating.

It makes you deep. It makes you capable of meeting people who have or are going through similar things.

There is a reason recently, I have been meeting people struggling in their relationships. They are looking for something. They want insight. They want to grow. And I imagine, they want to find a version of themselves that makes sense, when it feels like they may have lost something and the loss feels excruciating.

If you ever wonder if you should go back to something, someone, or some place, it’s ok. We can go back to things. It is just that we will be different, and that is a good thing.

Life would be quite dry if we kept reliving the same loop and even Prince Charming could get boring if he never changed.

The part of you that may wish you could go back? Well, that part likely needs a little love, a little encouragement, and maybe a good book to read.

It’s ok.

You and your story are ok.

You don’t have to go back and change anything.

Like I said, the question hit me deep and left me speechless.

And…I just finished this at 2:02. As I often see repeating numbers, I find it fun to look up their spiritual meaning. Here is a little phrase I found on this website:

You need to follow your own intuition and you have to be ready for new beginnings. It is better for you to leave your past behind and to go forward.

my housemate Sawyer, with the juices just delivered for his first three day juice cleanse…I am now an affiliate, enter TERRA4818 for 10% off (don’t mind recommending something I love…but you have to be in El Salvador to take advantage of it)

Hey! Shout out to you fellow writers. If this resonates for you, I would greatly appreciate your recommendation on your own Substack. It is the kind of marketing I feel good about, as there is so much authenticity in it.

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