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Biddy is a woman of some years: a GenX'er, Riot Grrrl, survivor, traveler, tattoo collector, senior pet owner, music lover, former public school embattled public school retiree and amatuer vegan chef. Biddy Sounds Off is a thinking woman's bildungsroman and pirate radio station some thirty years in the making: featuring episodic writings and eclectic musical selections.
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off. A place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. And I'm happy to report the shaking is subsiding. When I finally got to a place in Mexico where we, my 2 old pets and I, could finally settle, unpack, get organized.
Biddy:Organization is a kind of fetish for me. The soothing rhythms of refolding a sock drawer that has gotten messy. It helped soothe the mental state I was in when I arrived. Grief struck. Hell bent on a better life.
Biddy:Confused by said confused by said better life, as it continues to unfold every which way in front of me, less overwhelmed by it all now. We are able to reestablish the routines of our life, our peaceful vibe. One of the standards I'd set for myself moving down here was, if I could create the peaceful and harmonious vibe we shared, pets and I, in our bubble, if I could recreate those preferred rhythms of our life, then we could probably live anywhere. This was good because a massive reduction in living costs was direly needed. It made a lot of financial sense for me.
Biddy:I had taken on debt after settling my father's messy estate, and I was jobless. Of course, we've all heard about remote jobs and working from anywhere. A teacher by trade, I figured I'd snag a job easily. Turns out, I greatly overestimated my higher ability as a woman of some years. I had also greatly underestimated the competitiveness of this remote field.
Biddy:People have been out here since before COVID even, trying to get the freedom remote work opportunities can provide. In the end, I snagged the perfect position. Even though my work is part time, I'm still able to make good progress repaying those bills. So the dream is real. Moving to Mexico is still a valid prospect for others who feel compelled to move here and to integrate here.
Biddy:Like any relationship, the more you put in the more you get out. My suggestion for anyone seeking remote only international work, add at least 3 months to whatever your worst case scenario is. For me, it was 6 months and I should have planned for 9 months. I fucked myself by overspending and overcompensating for my ignorance, sometimes on arrival. That learning curve will cost you and hopefully, you can budget for that and you have more savings than I did.
Biddy:I knew it was a risk, but I knew that there is never any exactly right time for anything and a bitch ain't getting any younger. And I know how precious our time here is and just how fleeting too. Out like a light one day, just like that. While we're here, let's let this little light of ours shine before it's out, out brief candle and all that. Jack off Jill with LolliRot from 1997 followed by a 2018 release, Dream Nails Giving Us Vagina Police.
Biddy:That song connecting me with the rage I feel when we are reduced to our genitals and the inhumanity that spreads from there. These lyrics, they wanna know what goes in, what comes out, what it looks like, whether you have one, reminding us, it is no one's fucking business. Before the break, I was describing the state of my nerves upon arriving here in Mexico, bereft, jobless, savings dwindling fast. Despite this evidence to the contrary, I somehow resisted the urge to admonish myself. I was not a mad stupid person.
Biddy:I had definitive data on that. I built a successful career after all. I had already placed my trust in myself, causing intestinal problems and stress flare ups and the tremors, shaking not like a fluttering damsel butterfly in distress, but like an unrepentant, sweaty derelict, like the alcohol shakes. And I did sweat the house down. No question, the menopause amount of stress I brought with me across the border was all part of this process of finding a better life for myself.
Biddy:And I knew better than to quit, to lose hope, to lose faith in myself. Trust the data. A mantra that had sprung up from me like the sad disease looking tendril of a new root, a new shoot that continues to reach for the sun's light, even in the most godforsaken of places. I knew better than to give up on myself, whether it was through some kind of heroics or just by passive survival. I'd made it this far.
Biddy:I've earned my respect. Not long ago, I survived the darkest depression of my life. It would have been 4 years ago now. I did not expect to survive it, but the amount of strength that emerged from the well of self advocacy, the resource I'd begun to nourish again, after making it through that divorce a couple of years earlier, I'd started therapy. I'd entered those sessions as a student, ready to learn.
Biddy:And not a jaded gen xer, misunderstood slacker, missing throat with all the answers. And I'd already made a few good strides by then towards improved mental health and wellness. Forward facing progress. My brain was addled. It feels like major depression eats giant holes in my brain.
Biddy:The confusion was real. So I kept it simple. A mantra is simple. Step 1, keep moving forward. This means no backsliding in brain, body or emotion.
Biddy:Do my best just to stay alive. The bar was low I guess, but this was hugely symbolic for me when I struggled in those awful pits of depression. Part of the reason I got got there was my self hatred, which needed convincing that I even deserved to continue drawing breath. Ultimately, the logic of the following kindness and respect. My self core beliefs is that living things deserve kindness and respect.
Biddy:My self hatred accepted this and relented and ultimately stopped interfering with my progress. With logic in place, I moved to the data. How could I keep the faith up enough to build momentum through my behaviors? This is when I marked up the calendar. A walk outside here.
Biddy:A yoga nap there. A shower. It helps to live alone. I expect judgments spring up from nowhere. Inane loud mouths releasing my inner judgment.
Biddy:A 1,000 old limbs, rotting vines, and calcified plant shoots that had been denied untangled themselves from my organs and insides and flew away. Let's take a break. Everything's coming. Everything's new. Oh, it must be a similar image.
Biddy:Mario's Cafe from the widely beloved Saint Etienne's album, brilliantly titled So Tough. After that, Tanukhi Chan giving us hand bands from the classic Sundays album, giving us a taste of nostalgia. I, for 1, have to be careful with nostalgia. It can be too much, too sometimes giving us a heartache through tooth decay. Sometimes we crave that decay, the fetid rotting leaves the dog likes to roll in at the beginning or end of a season.
Biddy:For me, this can lead to a backslide either psychic pain or emotional rawness, scratching through the bloody skin, a return to the comfort of sadness, familiar pain. Depression almost has an allure to it. Even sarcasm sets my teeth on edge. Before the break, I've been talking about how nervous I've been when I arrived here in Mexico some 9 months ago. It took me forever to find a job and I'd always been an earner.
Biddy:I actually hadn't been unemployed for more than a summer since I got my first job at Baskin Robbins on Circle Avenue. I used to eat the hot fudge concentrate just by itself, scooping it into these great big cups, and then just eating on that for a while. I was 15 and thought it was funny to turn the ticket number display to read 69 whenever I was working. A girl who was 16 closed there one night by herself and got tied up and assaulted by knife point. I know assaulted is a bit vague but, we don't always need to know what happened, you know?
Biddy:Do we? Genital wise, I mean. People always want the gory details and I just hate the inhumanity of that. As well as the implied judgment some people have. All sexual assault is reprehensible.
Biddy:There are shades of it. Yes. But the context of someone else's pain shouldn't need defending. Was there penetration? What kind?
Biddy:Was there a weapon? Did she some how overreact or react at the wrong time? Or not react the way you expected her to react? It's also reductionist. Pain is subjective to the sufferer.
Biddy:Assault is assault and people don't deserve to be judged for surviving. No one does. And it isn't just women who are raped but it is a hell of a lot of too many of us fem presenting people who experienced multiple assault over a lifetime of surviving within this misogynistic culture, while simultaneously training up the younger generations to perpetuate rape culture. That fear of your assault being judged by someone who blames you somehow. This is in humanity.
Biddy:Becoming the embodiment of an act. Ceasing to be a human person. But what happened to her was terrible. And it terrified me because I had just closed the store by myself the night before. Dipping dilly bars into the hot fudge concentrate.
Biddy:Didn't stop me from going back to work though. Luckily, we started closing the Baskin Robbins with 2 people at night. After that job, I went to the record store. I always kept a job and so driving around aimlessly through Mexico with these 2 pets and zero job prospects wasn't exactly in keeping with this responsible image I've been presenting for the last 1000 years. Naturally, I was nervous plus the money was running out.
Biddy:I was on a mission though, in search of this new life. I was anxiety fueled. Anger has a heat and anxiety has a momentum. Both of which can be used to either get things done effectively and efficiently. Or flail about wildly while trying.
Biddy:As the months ticked onward, I got proficient down here. This was helpful because I still didn't have that job and owed a ton of lawyer fees and estate fees again. Please do something today if you haven't begun estate planning. Plus, I didn't even know where our home was yet. My 2 senior pets rolled with it and stayed healthy.
Biddy:And as the months ticked by, I realized we were all enjoying our sampling of the different areas we visited. In Lucerias, we got to see iguanas up close and personal. As in, there were at least 100 of them living in a cactus tree beside our cottage. It smelled like a zoo back there, but it was beautiful. There was a stunning Moroccan looking pool surrounded in glittering blue tile.
Biddy:The water was a warm 85 degrees. It was hot as fuck and the iguanas like to swim in the pool too. They were incredible to watch. They lined up on the wall nearby and took turns diving. The pets kept cool.
Biddy:Knew better than to fuck with them. I shared the water with them and came to realize that part of the glittering that had caught my eye were the scales they left behind in the water. Once, I found a long claws and when it shed, it was all still in one piece. I've always loved iguanas. Not sure if that's a callback to my youth watching black and white Godzilla movies on Sunday mornings before the cartoons started.
Biddy:But I'd always hoped to have an iguana as a pet one day. Of course, as evidenced by the teeming cactus tree beside a busarian cottage, too much or too many can become an infestation. Astonishing how quickly that happens really. As the months ticked on, the vision of this better life I dreamed of came into sharper focus. And while my competency in a new country continues to grow, I've been able to make that life a reality for myself and pets.
Biddy:Reconstructing our bubble. Finding our familiar rhythms again in this new awe inspiring place. And as I shed my own layers, my scales, as these last several months have ticked by, the anxiety and the anger and the physical pain I brought with me down here begins to shed methodically. At a much slower pace than I can control or would like, but patience comes with it, or so I hope. Sooner than later, eventual fucking Lee.
Biddy:Our last song comes from Aldis Harding, The Barrel from from 2019. This has been Biddy's Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.