How Do I Go Back to Walls?

We’re getting close to our last month here, and apparently this is the stage where I start having all the feelings.

I’m not sure I’m ready to leave.

And that surprises me a little.

Of course I miss my family—that’s the hardest part. But maybe what I’m realizing is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be one life or the other. Maybe there’s a way to have a little bit of both.

Apparently spending a few months away from your regular life can be dangerous 😂You start realizing there might be more than one way to live it.

I’m also slightly panicked that we somehow arrived in Mexico with carry-ons and are now in possession of what appears to be the contents of a tiny home.

How does this happen?

We came down with clothes, toiletries and a few necessities. Somewhere along the way, “we’re only here for a few months” turned into buying things because, well, we live here right now.

And now the person who packed her entire Mexican life into a carry-on is looking around thinking:

I should probably start packing.

A month early!

This should tell you how concerned I am.

Anyone who knows me well knows

I DO NOT pack early for a trip.

I’ve been known to book a $99 Swoop flight to Ontario and still not be entirely sure I’m going until about an hour before I need to make the 50 minute drive for the airport.

Then somehow I show up in Ontario with an overstuffed personal item, clothes hanging out of it, one sandal missing, looking like I’ve just been trampled by a herd of moose.

So the fact that I am considering packing a month in advance should probably be treated as a cry for help.

Except I don’t want to spend our last month preparing to leave the place I’m still living in.

And I’m starting to realize that some of the things I’m going to miss most aren’t the big things.

They’re the ordinary ones.

I’m going to miss wearing shorts and a tank top every single day. I’m always cold at home.

At home I basically live in an Oodie big enough to comfortably house three people, so this has been quite the wardrobe adjustment.

Clint, on the other hand, is going to have to adjust to wearing clothes again. I honestly don’t think the man has worn a shirt since we got here.

Winter is going to be a shock for both of us. I have to give up my tank tops & shorts and Clint has to rediscover the entire top half of his wardrobe.

Although, financially, there may be something to this lifestyle! It turns out you can save a lot on clothes, especially when half the household just stops wearing them. Lol

I’m even going to miss waking up and opening our bedroom door—stepping out of our cool, air-conditioned little cave from the night before and straight into a wall of heat.

In typical Clint fashion, I am sure he times how long takes me to wedge myself out the door before all the precious cold air escapes.

Nothing says living the dream in Mexico quite like:

“SHUT THE DOOR! YOU’RE LETTING THE COLD AIR OUT!”

I am pretty sure I've never uttered that phrase at home! Lol

And then there’s the light.

I’m not sure how I’m going to adjust to waking up with my coffee and looking out at my backyard filled with spruce trees and snow again.

I love my home. There’s something beautiful about that too.

But the light will change.

Winter casts this cool colour through our house. I know that probably sounds strange to some people, but light isn’t just a colour.

It’s a feeling.

The light here is warm.

Golden hour here is completely different. You can actually feel the warm glow wrapped around you like a thick, heavy blanket.

I think that might be one of the things I miss most.

The warmth here isn’t only the temperature.

But there’s another part of this I keep thinking about.

I know this isn’t exactly real life.

We’re living in someone else’s house, with a pretty incredible setup, in a location that would be hard to beat. We didn’t move to Mexico, buy a house and figure out how to make a life here. We were handed this little pocket of time—and somehow got to live in it for a few months.

So when I think, I don’t want to leave, I also have to wonder what exactly it is I don’t want to leave.

Mexico?

This house?

This beach?

This particular version of our life?

Because if we come back—and we are contemplating it—the reality would probably look a whole lot different.

It would likely involve a motorhome & some land.

Which brings up an entirely different question:

Could I be this happy living in a motorhome for the majority of the year?

Honestly, I think I could...

Or maybe this whole thing is just a little blip in our lives. A ridiculously lucky few months that we’ll look back on one day and say, Can you believe we got to do that?

Or maybe it showed us something about how we actually want to live.

I guess that’s the part we haven’t figured out yet.

And, to be fair, we may already be romanticizing things.

There were days this summer when Clint was so hot and miserable that he swore he would never do this again.

Later, when the trauma had apparently faded, I asked him, “Do you think you’d actually come back in the summer?”

He thought about it and said, “I think it’s kind of like childbirth. The mother goes through horrible, earth-shattering pain, and then she forgets all about it and does it again. So yeah, I’ll probably do it again in the summer.”

Apparently Mexico in the summer is comparable to childbirth, according to Clint! Lol

And then the other day I realized something that made me laugh.

Over the years we’ve done a few renovations to our house, and there’s always been a running joke:

Clint: "Barb wants to rip down another wall."

Clint has told people for years that I won’t be happy until birds are flying through the house.

The other day it suddenly hit me.

I have birds flying through the house.

I looked at him and said, “How the hell am I supposed to go back to walls now?” 😂

Apparently I wasn’t unreasonable all those years.

I was just renovating toward Mexico.

And maybe that’s the strange part about knowing an experience has an ending.

When we first arrived, everything stretched out in front of us.

There was time.

We could go there next week. Take that drive another day. Sit on the beach tomorrow. Explore somewhere new later. Figure things out as we went.

Now suddenly every day feels like it counts.

But I don’t want that feeling to turn our last month into another to-do list.

I don’t need to cram Mexico into the next few weeks like an overstuffed suitcase—which, coincidentally, is another problem future Amy is going to have to deal with.

Maybe I don’t need to do more.

I’ve sat.

I’ve reflected.

I’ve listened to the waves.

I’ve appreciated the sunsets.

I’ve had plenty of meaningful moments.

At this point, I think I’d just like to pretend we’re not leaving. Lol

Yep. That sounds more like me.

No countdown. No “last time we’ll do this.” No turning every coffee into a moment I need to soak in.

I’m going to continue living here like we live here.

I’ll wear my shorts and tank tops. I’ll slip through the bedroom door to the wall of heat. I’ll continue ignoring the growing pile of things that somehow need to fit into two carry-ons.

And I’ll watch the birds fly through the house.

Because I have birds flying through my house now.

I’ll deal with walls when I get there.

Amy

OH AND......