Day 81

We came back to the US for two weeks. We used our son’s two-week spring break to return to our home here in Maryland. We have 4 more days until we return to Mazatlán and my husband, and I have already started talking about what we have missed in Mexico over the last 10 days.

I remember blogging that I wondered whether it would feel like home when I stepped back on US soil. I wondered whether our 68 days in Mexico had already started to change me.

I wondered if I would feel like I needed to be back here and going back to Mexico would be hard. Conversely, I wondered whether Mazatlán was home, and I could not wait to leave the US.

The truth is I am still somewhere in between both worlds. I started to fantasize about having the best of both worlds and living in both places whenever I wanted to be in one, I would go and when I wanted to leave, I would leave to the other home. I thought about our house here being an AirBnB for others while we are there and home when we wanted to come back. It’s a perfect plan except it isn’t reality at all.

I am ignoring the fact that our little guy is committed to school until he goes off to college, (he is in 6^th grade) so we have to be in one place or the other for at least 10 months a year.

I am ignoring that this lifestyle means I don’t need to work again, and I am only in my 50’s I am supposed to be working for another 15-20 years, right???!!!

I am ignoring the fact that we are no longer independently wealthy and this lifestyle is exactly one for people who can afford both worlds simultaneously.

This fantasy is about not committing to either place. That is a tough thing to do when trying to acclimate to a new country, with a new language and new culture. I can’t be half in America to do this.  I want to be fluent in Spanish. I want to be a part of the culture in Mexico, not just a temporary observer. I wanted this my whole life. Now I have it and it seems that I am still torn between worlds.

I told my husband when verbalizing my crazy fantasy that I love the idea we would have a life no one we know has. I know that sounds weird. If we lived in both places, we would have a ‘unique life’ from the rat race in the US and the simple life in Mazatlán. Our friends and our family could not judge us as they would know nothing about what we are living. They could only live it through our experiences.

We don’t know how the next 6 months will play out for us financially. We have a bunch of balls in the air and have very little control over what happens. I do know that we are prepared to adjust our sails whatever way the wind blows, and we will move forward, happily.