Where It All Began

One would imagine it best to start at the beginning if I am to fully share my “expat” experience.  How did a college-educated, professional woman who made it to the top of her field in Human Resources (I had earned that illustrious “seat at the table” that HR professionals strive for, until you get there that is) end up giving it all up to live the dream in paradise?  Not without sacrifice, lots of research, and most of all, lots of patience. 

My husband (John) and I love to travel to new places.  It is a hobby of ours. We had traveled to the Riviera Maya region several times and fell in love with it.  We had been working with a real estate development and investment company and have invested in property in the region, so we had been learning a lot through this relationship.  So, we started researching the region on the premise of buying a vacation condo, one that could be used for our future retirement home.

The bottom line is that we had the option of working for another 10 years until we were both eligible for “full retirement” from a financial benefit standpoint. We also came to the realization that after working all our lives we were not going to be able to afford to live comfortably in the lifestyle we had become accustomed to, particularly in the geographic region we were in at the time (Washington, DC, metropolitan area).  

At the time we were both stressed out from work and the pace of life where I spent two to four hours per day on the road commuting to a very stressful job and John was struggling with being underutilized in his job.  We also found, as a result of all this stress, that we were aging a little more quickly than we were comfortable with, and our bodies were beginning to show the “stress fractures” I’ll call them (the ever-multiplying gray hairs, tired and sore joints, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, always tired, and where in the world did all those wrinkles come from that were not here yesterday?). 

Faced with that for our future, or, the option of taking an early retirement, selling everything, getting totally out of debt, and moving to paradise; it was a fairly easy decision, and here we are!  Well, it is not that simple.  It is hard giving up the familiar.  As you can imagine, after more than 55 years of living in an area, being used to a certain lifestyle and faced with leaving our families, this was not an easy decision to make.  Yet, we knew that in order to enjoy our last few decades of life, we had to make a change.  The stress had to go.  As did a lot of the household items I had been hanging on to for years “just in case” I needed them one day.  As did the majority of the family heirlooms I had been hanging onto for my kids.  As did three-quarters of my super-sized walk-in closet full of clothes….and my beloved wall of shoes.  That was very painful.  VERY painful.  You really only need flip flops here.  Bottom line is, you do not want to pay to ship things that you will not need or that will rust.  This will be a topic for another article! 

This is probably a good time to point out that where we are living is not the “TexMex” version of Mexico many envision when they first hear the word “Mexico.”   If you look at a map of Mexico you will see that it is a huge country.  Where we are living is literally on a “peninsula” in the Caribbean!  We are half way between Playa del Carmen and Tulum, right on the coast.  Imagine living on St. Thomas or St. John in the Virgin Islands, only far more affordable (and the people definitely more friendly)!  In the entire region of the Yucatan Peninsula in 2012, there were only four deaths attributable to gun violence. Can you say the same for Baltimore, Washington, DC? Chicago?  Everyplace has it’s “ugly.”  It’s not perfect here, but I sure prefer the odds! 

So, after a year of "pondering" the possibilities, the decision was made.  We quit our jobs, sold three-quarters of our “stuff”, made living arrangements, bought health insurance, and we are here.  More on the details of that part of the journey in the next article! 

Stay tuned!