We sold everything we owned to start a new life in Mexico
Our family at playa Vistamar, Puerto Vallarta Mexico, 2024
Well, almost everything. It’s a jarring sentiment; the idea of giving up everything to start new probably induces anxiety for the average person. When we tell people that we sold everything to start a new life in Mexico, we’re usually met with wide eyes, a dropped jaw and a “what? but why?”.
The answer to that question is a bit long but to summarize — we both always loved travel. And not just one-week vacations or backpacking, we love being immersed in new cultures, like living like locals, with locals. We had lived in a couple of countries teaching English, but after we returned from our last stint, we bought into the construct that to be a responsible adult was to take a 9–5, get a mortgage and to have some kids.
So, we tried that — we came back from Chile in 2015, started working, moved downtown, had a baby and eventually bought our first home. We “had it all” and we were very happy, but it always felt like something was missing, like there was an itch that none of these things could scratch.
In 2020, right after we moved into our home, the pandemic hit.
Disclaimer: I understand that this was an extremely difficult and painful time for many. The point of this post is not to minimize the pandemic but to tell our personal experiences. Believe me, we definitely went through our own dark time over the course of the next two years.
The world shut down. Daycare closed and we were both sent home to work remotely. We were home together, every day, all day and…we loved it. The longer the lockdowns and the work-from-home orders continued, the harder it was to remember how life was before. I remember at some point seeing a meme that said something along the lines of “we rush to separate from our families every morning to spend the day doing things that none of us like”. That really hit me. We were spending 40 + hours a week apart, doing jobs that we didn’t like to be able to afford to spend time with family and do things we loved.
It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what we were doing, that’s what so many of us were doing. Once you see fault in this, you can’t unsee it, and that’s where we were after a year and a half of lockdowns.
How could we go back to work and daycare and being a part all day? What’s the point anymore?
This realization led to us questioning A LOT of other things we always thought were normal. The education system, health care, and media all followed. The increasingly divisive political climate of our country and just the politicizing of identity and choice also played a significant role in our decision, but those are all posts for another time.
Long story short, we took the red pill. We began to wake up and admit that what we had, wasn’t what we wanted. We wanted more in life and knew that there was more to life. We started to look at what we really WANTED in life, what made us happy, what gave us excitement and where we wanted to be.
All roads led to Mexico, and Puerto Vallarta checked off all our boxes.
We began to take the steps to make it happen. Did our research, got Visas, sold what didn’t serve us anymore and basically started making moves to start a new life.
Many people probably think it’s crazy but that doesn’t matter to us because it feels so right. When we talk about it, we can feel the energy in the room change, and the energy in ourselves change. This is what we want, this is where we were meant to go. We trust ourselves and trust our intuition. As we start taking the first steps of our journey, we know we will be guided to where we are meant to be; we know there is more life out there.
“As you start to walk on the way, the path appears” — Rumi
-Written by Kathleen