When People Think I’m Joking

I love it when I tell people exactly what I’m going to do and they don’t believe me.

It’s been several years since I’ve done something crazy…like load up my dogs and move 1,000+ miles away for shits and gigs. I’ve done this a few times with varying degrees of success and happiness but always with stories to tell. People who have lived in the same place all of their lives simply cannot relate.

Imagine if you knew someone who lived on a beach in Mexico and they told you in all seriousness that you should move there because it’s cheap, uncrowded, and incredibly easy. If you had family obligations or a busy social life, you might take a pass and simply vacation there periodically. Now imagine you’re me. I have no family within 1,000 miles of my current location. I’ve been miserable in my job for more than a year and a half. My only debt is my mortgage. I can work from any location with Wi-fi. What would you do?

On Monday, I’m calling a realtor to discuss listing my house. I’m flying back to Mexico right before Labor Day to confirm this is really what I want to do. Lulu and Sherman will be thrilled because the sitter is staying with them for another full FIVE DAYS! While I’m there, I will ask my full list of questions. If my questions are answered to my satisfaction, I’ll list my house as soon as I get back to Arizona. Real estate is still going crazy in my area and prices have risen to borderline ridiculousness again. When it sells, the dogs and I are gone.

“But what will you do about _________?” I have contingency plans A through E for every possible scenario. That’s what I do every day with everything. So the answer is that I’ll figure it out just like I always do. It may suck and I may be back in six months crashing on a friend’s couch. Or it may not suck and I may find that Mexico is a gateway drug that sends me all over the world. Either way, I would rather experience life than find myself sitting in a nursing home in 40 years telling a story about how I was given the opportunity of a lifetime and I was too chickenshit to take it.

In some ways, I feel like a schizophrenic who finally gets stabilized on their meds and then believes they don’t need the meds anymore. A cautious person would tell me that I’ve worked too hard to get to this place to just throw it away and start over. But that cautious person doesn’t understand what it feels like to never want to leave your house. For the first time in a long time, I don’t just want to leave my house; I want to go everywhere and see everything. I intend to take advantage of that while it lasts.