I'm Not Coming to Visit You

So far, the hardest thing we have had to deal with is the reaction of friends and family. Responses have run the entire spectrum from brutal to beautiful. My mother said, “I’m not coming to visit you.” That’s it. One flat statement. Nothing else. I have tried to broach the subject a few times since, but she definitely does NOT want to talk about it. We got an almost identical reaction from Chuck’s grandparents: “oh? We won’t visit you. Have fun.”

We’ve also gotten our share of “Mexico?” accompanied by the look that says they secretly think we’ve been drinking mushroom tea. It’s no use to try to tell this group of people our reasons for wanting to live in Mexico. One person followed every positive reason we gave with “yeah…but you’ll be in MEX-I-CO!” speaking slower and louder each time like I was some kind of deaf, mentally challenged two-year-old.

Then there is the group of friends and family that still may think we are crazy, but like and respect us too much to say anything bad when we are obviously very excited. This is where, thankfully, the largest portion of our loved ones fall. They listen patiently while we prattle on about the new things we learned that day or our business plans, even ask polite, interested questions, all the while keeping their replies carefully neutral. We sincerely appreciate their generosity in listening to our babble, and hope that you who are contemplating becoming an expat have a large group of such friends.

And then the best reaction possible is the one where we get love and support and even a little excitement for our adventure. Chuck’s parents have been really great. They have bought books of their own on Mexico, and a map, so they can see where we are talking about all the time, do their own research, and plan their trips to come see us and share our adventure. They even got me a beautiful Mexican cookbook with lots of pictures for Christmas so I can start experimenting now. That means a lot to us. There is even the thought that when Brenda retires, they might come join us permanently. That would be fantastic. I love my mother- and father-in-law very much and will miss them greatly when we leave. I’m glad that we finally have them both using email regularly now, so at least we can keep in touch.

We have two friends who have been fantastically supportive: Jessica Nash and April Baskin. When we told them about our plans, we got squeals of delight, lots of hugs, and eager questions. No mention of any negatives or questions about our sanity. I hope you potential expats have a few of these too.

Surprisingly, all of my clients have taken it very well. It turns out that my local ones have no desire to see me! And the national ones have never seen me. All they care about is that I am at the other end of the phone/email/IM to keep their sites up to date, refreshed, and up and running. I was a little concerned about my local clients, after all, they chose a local designer for a reason. But they’ve been great, which is a big WHEW! and a step closer to moving for us.

If all goes as planned (which it never does) and things go well (which they usually do, just not as quickly as we like), our goal is to be in Mexico just before next Christmas. That made this holiday a little harder for us with those people that know our timetable. It’s lovely to know that we will be missed, but Brenda cried at the Christmas dinner table, and that felt just rotten.

Our big mission over the next year is to bring my Mom around. She and my Dad have traveled to Mexico and loved it, so I suspect that she’s mad at me for leaving. Which I don’t get, because she and my dad talked seriously for a couple of years about picking up and moving to Reno. I didn’t get mad at her! I think what will go the farthest with her is if we plan our first return trip before we even leave. I mean seriously plan with travel dates, an itinerary and everything. I just have to remind myself that my sister moved out of state a few years ago, and I’m the only one left. Plus, I’m the baby. I guess it’s only fair that since I’ve benefited from that position in the family my whole life, I pay for it now