Samuel Bernal is a journalist born in Mexico City who has lived in Colorado for 20 years. He manages La Tricolor 107.1, a Spanish-language radio station, and amplifies Latino voices through radio and digital media by sharing human stories that connect cultures and celebrate humanity.

I have a curse with long-distance relationships. Maybe it all began when my grandfather left Mexico to come work in the United States. He bit the forbidden fruit — leaving his homeland to live in another country — and his descendants were left condemned. Humans are a kind of mobile plant: When we go too far from our native soil, we grow differently and so do the generations that follow.

So when my grandfather came to the U.S. and had a long-distance relationship with my grandmother, he may have set in motion a family style of loving — one defined by loving from afar.

The first time I had a long-distance relationship, I felt proud. I lived in Mexico, and she lived in the U.S. That made me feel international. It made me believe my love was so vast that it crossed borders, cities, rivers, forests, mountains and deserts and still overflowed.

I was with that girlfriend for about four years. She visited me in Mexico every three or four months, and the rest of the time we sent letters and spoke almost daily on the phone, which was incredibly expensive.

When we broke up, I thought I would never have another long-distance relationship. But that wasn’t the case. I had another girlfriend from northern Mexico while I lived in the center of the country. We made an effort to see each other twice a month, but it was exhausting and costly. Eventually, we broke up. I thought that would be my last long-distance relationship.

Then I moved to the United States, and one day I began a relationship with someone who lived in Germany. It was my third long-distance relationship. I started to realize this wasn’t normal; a pattern was repeating itself. She came from Germany to visit me in the U.S. The rest of the time, it was calls and texts — video calls didn’t exist yet, though at least long-distance calls were no longer so expensive. Still, it was draining. I thought that would be my last long-distance relationship. But it wasn’t.

Later on, I had another girlfriend, this time from Mexico. She lived in Nuevo León. I was in Colorado. We saw each other every three or four months. We talked and wrote to each other every day. That’s when I realized maybe what I truly loved was writing. Writing and talking, writing and talking. After all, that’s what communicators do. It wasn’t that I liked long-distance relationships, it was that writing and speaking was my calling. And now there were video calls, so we lasted three or four years like that. I thought that would be the last long-distance relationship. But it wasn’t.

Then I met a doctor and psychologist who lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I lived in Colorado. Everything about her was beautiful: what she did, what she studied, what she wrote and how she looked. From the moment I began writing to her and saw her, I said: “This is the one. I’m going to marry her.” And so I did. She came all the way to Aspen so we could get married. It was a magical day. But we still couldn’t live together yet. We had to process her papers. So once again, for the umpteenth time, I had a long-distance relationship. But this time, it would be the last one. Because now we were married, and, once her papers were ready, we’d live together and say goodbye forever to long-distance love. But it wasn’t so.

I still have a long-distance relationship. And it’s with Mexico.

What is Mexico? Mexico is the name of a piece of land where our grandmother left us all. A vast piece of land. And like any inheritance from a grandmother, those of us still alive fight over it. Fights everywhere. Battles for territory. Good versus bad, not-so-bad versus not-so-good, good versus good, bad versus bad. A brawl everywhere in that land called Mexico. And yet I love it, and I hate it.

Mexico is my love at a distance. I can’t leave it because the people I love are there: my mother, my brother, my wife’s mother, the ghost of my father, the ghosts of my grandparents, the ghosts of my youth. In Mexico lives the child I was, and the young man I once was.

Mexico is a love at a distance that I think about every day. The one I stalk every day. The one I call every day. The one I often dream about. We don’t live together, but I enjoy it from afar. I miss it. I despise it. I disapprove of it. And I love it.