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One year ago this week, I watched the calendar with the anticipation of a child waiting for Christmas. I was ticking off things from my to do lists, shopping lists, wish lists in preparation for the trip of a lifetime. The trip I had been planning in my dreams for 17 years was finally becoming real.
I stuffed my clothes, Zumba skirts, multiple shoes and purses and keepsakes in the closet for a nomadic four months - or so I thought.
The mission was multipronged:
purge as much as possible from our home for prospective tenants to rent our room and my daughter’s room while my first born acted as a live-in property manager (and stuff the rest of our clothes and memories in the closet)
liberally pack four-months worth of clothes
prepare for a week-long road trip from Washington, D.C. to Sacramento.– with two senior cats in tow
dump our pick up truck in California by loaning it to my second born
check in on my senior mother
fly off into the Baja California Sur Mexican sunset for four months for a try-it-out trip
Phew.
Also on that list was to make sure we got couples massages before hitting the road for a week-long road trip!
I remember it … vaguely. To be honest, I actually have to look back at my calendar and photo gallery to review notes and images of what I was doing, thinking, how I was preparing, panicking. All worth it. And those four months easily turned into 12 … and counting. (But we ended up leaving the cats … sorry Socks and Tigger!)
It’s been a journey of self-, relationship- and cultural discovery, mental and physical shedding, courageous curiosity and risk.
I invite you to experience what the last year has looked like, tasted like, sounded like. Leaning in on my journalistic eye and adventurous appetite, my articles and photos aim to illustrate a version of relocating to Mexico who sought to be an expat and, instead, became an immigrant. Learn why I left Washington, D.C., USA, how I have been navigating a new country, and why we exchanged our four-month excursion for home (for now).
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