Belize had always attracted me — I had a travel book on my shelf that I'd bought at least fifteen years before, when I'd planned an aborted trip. My interest was mostly fly fishing. I'd never been saltwater flats fishing, but I'd listened to podcasts and read up on it for years. I daydreamed about catching a tarpon on a fly — standing in waist-deep turquoise water, sand under my feet, casting at fish I could see a hundred feet away in the clear water.

Now it wasn't just the fishing that drew me. I needed to travel far from a smashed relationship and the rut I was in at work. I needed to go somewhere I could travel light and unburdened.

All I heard were the calls of the birds and the quiet putter of little golf carts. I had arrived at my destination, barely travel-weary. The clerk in the little cinder-block office directed me to a refrigerator full of Belikin beer — the only beer in Belize — and I paid for one and grabbed it. The tropical heat had hit me and the cold beer was welcome. One more perfect thing.

What I really appreciated, I think, is that I felt like I knew what I was doing — that I knew how to be out in the world. If I couldn't find my place again at home, maybe there was someplace else for me, out here or some other place.

In short order, I found Fabian — a giant black man who worked as a knowledgeable and resourceful guide for snorkeling, fishing, whatever I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to fish the flats.

"Show up at 6 a.m. tomorrow, brah. I will take you."

My kind of company, and my kind of invitation.

He'd brought his eight-year-old son to fish with us. Some might have found that intrusive. But I was delighted. I loved a father spending time with his son at work. It reminded me of fishing with my dad, of how he'd let me help and had taught me the finer details of fishing. I knew how that kid felt, working with his father, looking up to him for advice on the right way to get the job done.

Fabian and his son and I spent hours out on the water. They would drop me off in knee-deep water and I would fly fish for bonefish — a saltwater game fish known for their speed, strength, and stealth. Connecting with a bonefish is electric: the fish explodes out of the water then swims as fast as a bullet out of a gun while you try to hold on. A heart-pounding few minutes.

The fishing made me happy, and the days on Caye Caulker were all fine. Those days were some of the best days of my life to that point — sunny and bright and busy.

While the days in Belize were some of the best days of my life, the nights were some of the worst. Every night, I fell into depression, asking myself, What's the point of it all? Almost every night, I drank in the bars until the people around me began to annoy me. Then I walked the empty sand streets of the island for hours, or I sat at the docks and stared out over the ocean, wondering if I could just walk into that dark blue and call it good.

Night on Caye Caulker, for me, was the dark time — a tropical hell, like all the most disturbing drunken scenes from old movies. I avoided my room for as long as I could, but eventually I sat exhausted on the edge of my bed — my body still, but my mind racing. That's when it was darkest.

For all my efforts at packing light, I was carrying a lot of baggage. Nights, it weighed on me.

At the end of the trip, after I returned home, it was bad, and not even travel helped. That's when my downward spiral nearly drowned me.

In December, I saw a reduced-fare flight to Belize I couldn't refuse.

When I'd gone the first time, I'd gone without myself — or at least I'd tried to. I'd been escaping a situation and hoping for relief. One misguided moment after that, I'd bought a ticket to go again, then canceled it the next morning because I knew running away was too tempting for me.

This time, I bought the tickets and kept them. Going to Belize this time would be a rational decision. I would be going to a place I was learning like a river. This time I knew what I needed.

Fabian's father had a fishing shack on an island, and he was going to take me there. We had big plans for serious fishing, and Fabian had asked for a few things from the States: polarized sunglasses, fishing lures for barracuda, and a new rod and reel. I had a great time shopping for him.

Remembering the trip, I realized that part of what I value about Belize is how easy it is to envision myself as a speck in a vast ocean — and how comforting that thought is. Just like when I was a kid setting my foot on an unknown trail in a forest I thought I knew, I was a man setting his foot in a wide and welcoming ocean in a foreign land.

That time away saved me.