These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Almost three and a half years since the last one. I’m not proud to have caved, and it’s especially hard to admit it was all for a girl. Fuck, thinking back, I don’t know what came over me. She wasn’t even my type. Dragged me off the dance floor and into a booth, pulled a flask from her purse and put it to my lips. Sips became shots and then came darkness, dreams of screams and broken glass.
2
Today I began pitching, two solid under my belt. Time may prove me a fool, but I believe I have an edge, mostly because I care more than most and can communicate such. Pretty confident that the only thing standing between me and a big payday is persistence, maybe a slight tweak here and there. Actually enjoying this situation, this challenge. I feel like a rich man waiting patiently for the world to recognize.
3
Just out of bed, first thing I see online is a harsh, 1-star review of The Cargo Ship Diaries. I feel my heart drop but catch it before it hits the floor, and in the next beat find the hurt being swept away by gratitude. I don’t even think about it, just somehow know, without a doubt, that this a good thing, an opportunity. No idea who you are Max Rosenberg, but you just made my day 🙂
4
I know a big part of this is me being tired right now, and that everything will be better in the morning, but fuck it. Truth is I feel like a loser and a hypocrite. I’ve been on several calls this week, but what value have I really added? Have I helped anybody’s business? Of course not. I can’t even help my own. Here I am, broke and cold in a shitty little room in Cusco.
5
I’m the only sober guy in the place. The club is a big square room with a balcony overlooking two sides. You can dance on the bar with your shirt off and see a guy taking a shit in the cubicle next to you. Half the population is Israeli, and they don’t like to mingle. After four I walk home alone, content with the experience, and vowing never to return.
6
I sold my sheep on the advice of an old king, forgot about the merchant’s daughter, hopped a ship across the strait. I was full of swagger and certainty until my eyes wandered and my trust got crushed at a market in Tangier. Now I slog daily at a crystal shop atop a hill few people climb, trying to get back on my feet. It’s not much fun and progress is slow, but I take comfort in knowing how the story ends.
7
Today makes it five straight that I haven’t practiced my Spanish. I speak a few words to shopkeepers and the like, sure, but real practice means focused study or effortful conversation, and I haven’t been doing any of that lately. I’m all consumed by money worries, scrambling to make something happen on the work front. Language learning has to take a back seat.
8
Bouncing back. Not monetarily, but mentally. I guess it’s acceptance of my situation, what needs to be done. I wanted it to be easy, expected everything to flow as planned. Adjusting now to the reality of it all. I’ll have to scratch and claw and pay some dues. That’s okay. I can handle that. But this can’t keep happening. I can’t be back here a year from now.
9
Here’s what happens when you hit the front page of Reddit: Your website gets flooded with traffic and has no choice but to crash; two hundred new people sign up to your mailing lists; you get calls and emails from media outlets back home; your video gets more than ten thousand views overnight, you sell a few books; and you end up meeting one redditor IRL for a chat and a bite to eat.
10
The opportunity cost of what I’m doing has never been more apparent to me. Maneesh shares the analogy of humans evolving from hunter-gatherers to settled folk; that switch was the first step on the march to world domination. Traveling as I do, routine ain’t easy, and I often lack the physical presence of like-minded people. Those are big things.
11
I still find it tough to ask for help. I have this limiting belief that I need to figure it all out for myself, that assistance is akin to cheating. My head holds a silly dream of emerging from solitude with some grand solution, sharing it with the world and being regarded as a genius. But I broke through and asked more than a thousand people for help today. Everything is going to be okay.
12
The lights have been dimmed, the bar hands are bopping, the party will soon be in full swing. I just got done laughing along to tales of drunken misadventure, mention of diaphragms and heavy Argentinian girls scaling spiked railings. But I head home for an early night, part of me wanting to stay and revel in the frolics, a bigger part determined to get my money right.
13
Thursday night, after paying off my credit card, my available bank balance was down to $170.32. Three days later, I’m up almost $1,200. More than half came via donations. One name I didn’t recognize sent me five hundred. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that. But grateful, too. Incredibly grateful. Keeping in mind that the world can’t be a more generous place unless people are willing to receive.
14
It’s after ten when I step out to hit up the mopatop shop. There’s supposed to be a blood moon out tonight, but I’m too buzzed to care. I’m thinking how the software dream is absolutely possible, and how that call just gave me another glimpse of it. It seems like slow progress but I’ve come a long way these past few months. Lessons internalized, feeling like I belong.
15
We’re still super close, and I’m very glad for that. To hear us on Skype today you’d think we’d never broken up, that we’re doing the long distance thing. But she tells me about the guy she’s currently dating, and I tell her about the girl I was seeing here for a while. No jealousy. I tend to stay on good terms with past flames, but this is a whole other level. It’s something beautiful.
16
We hit up a Mexican place for soup and the chat turns to reflection. She’s been interviewed on TV three times this past month and made space after each to study how she did, pinpoint areas for improvement. First time noticed she occasionally looks up and to the left while speaking. Second time noticed she didn’t have great rapport with the host. Third time? Nailed it.
17
I have my little routine here in Cusco. About noon every day I hit up the same coffee shop for a bowl of soup. Afterwards I stroll down the hill to the market and find the extremely old woman selling extremely good cheese. I usually have to wake her up to buy a wedge. Today I stuck around nearby for some fresh-made juice, exchanging banter with a lady in the middle.
18
I’m noticing here what I noticed in Nepal: people walk out of exits or alleyways and cut you off without a blink or a bother. But a bigger pet peeve is the sidewalk etiquette. Or rather, the lack thereof. Foot traffic coming opposite often won’t budge to the side, even if there’s plenty of room for everyone. You’re forced down to the gutter to let them pass.
19
After sitting in front of a computer all day, my social skills are mush. I’m at the Rover trying to strike up conversations, but everything feels forced and awkward and self-conscious. I know I could stick it out, just keep talking and trying and I’d eventually come good. But I’m out of there and headed home by half seven. Tons of work on my plate these days. El divertido will have to wait.
20
I worked it all out. Twelve hours overnight to La Paz. I’ll stay in Bolivia a week or so and try pop down to the salar before making a break for Brazil. It’ll be fifteen hours on to Santa Cruz, then another ten to the border. Five hours from there to Campo Grande, then a whole night and day on a bus to Belo Horizonte. Some four thousand kilometers in less than two weeks.
21
My health has taken a nose dive in recent weeks. Ever since I stepped off that ship, really. The work stuff all-consuming, I haven’t exercised or stretched for more than a month. My lower back is aching from stagnation. I’ve been eating fairly healthy so I’ve kept the weight off and the abs are still there, but I get out of breath just walking up a hill, and not just because the air is thinner in these parts.
22
I’ve been using the Five Minute Journal app for a month or so. Don’t know if it’s made me any happier, but it’s certainly made me more conscious. Mainly through the nighttime question, “How could you have made today better?” My last five answers:
- Could have been more present in conversation
- More smiles
- Could have been more bold and honest with that Israeli girl
- Better social effort at the Rover
- Less YouTube
23
It’s almost 1am as I type this, been an interesting day. Started out with a phone call from an Irish radio legend, recorded an interview about my travels. Got some solid work done, ate some cheese, played some pool, hired an assistant… feeling productive and inspired overall, and very much looking forward to these next few months in Brazil. Sensing big things ahead.
24
I spend most of the day in bed. I’ve had food poisoning before, but this feels different. Besides the fever and desire to throw up, it’s as if something is lodged in my stomach. I have to make do with shallow breaths to avoid the pain. If it’s not better by morning I’ll make a break for the hospital. In the meantime, I’ll put on Mr Holland’s Opus and have myself a good cry.
25
Just climbed aboard the rebirth bus to Bolivia. I haven’t felt like myself here in Peru these past six weeks. I barely exercised, and the money worries wore me down. I never felt like I could let go and really be me. All in my head of course. But this is one of the advantages of the travel lifestyle. Every new place can be a fresh start, a chance to do better. Move on, respawn.
26
Six hours after arriving in La Paz, I’m walking into a wedding and kissing the bride on the cheek. The big cultural lesson from the evening is that Bolivians really love cowbell. I swear to the ghost of Pedro Murillo, every single song played by the band has some heavy cowbell going on. Every. Single. Song. And yet, they could probably do with a little more.
27
I’m sometimes envious of backpackers. You know, those types doing 3-6 month round-the-world trips. Their time is all their own. Here in Bolivia they can go see the pink dolphins, death road and the Amazon, take a week or two offline as needed. But I don’t have that luxury. I’ll squeeze in the salt flats this week, all I have time for while juggling the work stuff and battling slow Internet.
28
Standing at the corner of Mexico and Colombia, waiting for a friend I’ve never met before. It’s dark, traffic lights out, street buzzing. I try notice odd things — like the old man with the hula hoop — and things that are missing — like scooters, insects and bald people. The cops are female, five bodies to a vehicle, lights peeking from the hills like budding stars.
29
After midnight in a lower bunk, a room with six beds. There’s music thumping across the courtyard, the party in full swing. My roommates talk and joke about weed and cocaine and Absinthe. I was supposed to be sleeping aboard a bus tonight, en route to that white spot the size of Cyprus. But they’re striking down in Uyuni, roads blocked up.
30
Memories of Manzanillo as I climb a hill at the city’s edge, dogs barking like I’m a mailman made of cats. The sun breaks beyond the crest and I’m looking out over a red-tinted valley, with Illimani dwarfing hills to the southeast. Twenty minutes later I’m back through the canine gauntlet, scribbling Spanish words in a new book and sliding it under a black gate.