Why I’m Living in Santa Fe

So why am I living in Santa Fe? Life is complicated in general and made even more so when you’re a parent. Now that I’m in the thick of it with my younger son Max I can think of many more parents who have also been in the thick of it with one or more of their children. Like the one who became involved in a cult and refused to see his parents (he recovered). Or the alcoholic/depressive who gave up booze but is still depressed. Or the one who had a child with someone she now hates but has to share custody. Or the one who’s a functioning alcoholic but still causes his mother tremendous anxiety.

Speaking of anxiety, that’s why I’m living with Max who suffers from it. He had a major break down about six years ago when he called me on the phone in his car saying he thought he was having a heart attack, which is often how anxiety manifests. I told him if he thought he could drive, go to the emergency room or if he couldn’t drive, call 911. He made it to the hospital where he found out he wasn’t having a heart attack but anxiety was causing him so much dysfunction he couldn’t be alone. I spent almost three months with him going back and forth between El Valle and Albuquerque, where he was living. He spent a couple of weeks in a local hospital’s mental health facility where you can only get in if you say you’re suicidal. He was put on anti-anxiety medication. We went to therapy where the therapist told me, as I sat there crying, that with time he would recover.

He did recover enough to be on his own, even have a short-term relationship, moving around the country playing poker at casinos—California, Arizona, Nevada, as well as New Mexico—and online, which is what he does for a living but doesn't do much to keep anxiety at bay. He was of the generation who learned how to play online as teenagers, aided by a brain wired by chess, which he also played in high school and won the state championship.

Then COVID hit. He was in Santa Fe then, with a cohort of friends with whom he lost touch. The casinos closed. The gyms closed (he’s a weight lifter but not the kind who develops bulgy muscles). The nightlife disappeared. The online dating scene vanished (he’s gay). He became angrier and angrier that his life was ruined by COVID mandates and the politicians who were responsible for implementing them. All of them, but especially the liberal elites (he’s basically a Marxist whose anger has fomented nihilistic cynicism, though he would challenge that assessment). He spent the winter in Texas to avoid having to wear a mask. He came back in bad shape, isolated, anxious, and depressed, and moved into my house in El Valle.

There’s not much for him in El Valle except walking his German Shepard dog, Anka, who I helped him get from my friend Ike, who raises them. So I had no choice, really. I offered to rent a house with him in Santa Fe for one year so he could be in a safe environment and slowly integrate back into some kind of social life. I haven’t lived in an urban environment for 50 years. I basically don’t want to be here. The only way I can afford it is because I sold my lower field to my friend who’s been pasturing his mules there for years and pestering me to buy it for years. I gave the down payment to my other son for a down payment on a house he wants to buy (in the coveted school district) and am using the monthly payments for my Santa Fe rent.

This is what parents do but it doesn’t mean I like it. I miss my house and gardens and fields in El Valle, although I don’t miss the gentrification that’s happening there. A Santa Fe friend who also abandoned his rural home for the city said to me the other day, we’re “adrift.” I’m pissed at what’s happening to El Valle but Santa Fe is a million times worse: more development, more mansions, more traffic, less water. And the dogs can’t just run out the dog door and play in the wild. We have to take them to the dog park every morning and some other park in the afternoon where there’s some shade and let them run around without some Karen yelling at us to “put your dog on a leash!”

I’m trying to take advantage of the things I can do in Santa Fe that I like or that Max likes to help him be here. We go swimming at the big community center where he also plays basketball and lifts at the gym. I haven’t really swum, other than helping my grandkids learn, since Mark and I occasionally went to the Pojoaque Pueblo gym more than a decade ago. I find that I can still do it, all of it (or almost all of it): freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, elementary backstroke, but I think I’ll skip the butterfly. My right arm hurts when it goes straight up. A couple of days ago we went ice skating. I could have broken a hip or fractured my skull when I ventured out around the rink before I got my skating legs (I fell straight back onto my butt and head), which hadn’t been used since my kids were little. I got them back—sort of. Enough to invite my grandkids to go skating with me sometime when they finally make it up to visit this new place in Santa Fe (if their father were reading this he’d say cut the Jewish guilt crap).

I’m supposed to be here for a year. I can’t think about that or I’ll go crazy. Marlys, my good friend and soon to be El Valle housesitter, already told me that anytime I want to come home for a visit or forever, it’s OK with her. She’ll just do something else. Nice to have a friend like that, no? We’ve known each other since our older kids were born. Various scenarios play in my head all the time: maybe Max will find the right combination of medications that help his chemistry sort itself out; maybe he’ll find a friend or a lover who would like to move in; maybe he’ll realize that living with his mother may not be the best way to heal once he feels safe. I want him to find his way in the world without me so I can go home.