Reality Check

When my father passed away late in 2005 it occurred to me that there was really nothing else holding back our plan to move to Mexico. Todd sold his old BMW.  I sold my Mercury Mystique and bought a Ford Escape, which I felt was very apropo to the circumstance.  I gave notice and quit my job at the end of February 2006. Giddy with relief and excitement I began the process of divesting myself of all my worldly possessions.....and was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of what we were about to undertake.

After taking inventory we realized that we owned a virtual mountain of THINGS. Including a small rabbit named Larry and all his possessions. We had a large, very full, condo as well as 3 storage lockers. One storage locker held all my father's belongings and that was a monumental undertaking unto itself. I also had a storage locker that I had had since before I met Todd, (a remnant of 2 previous marriages) as did Todd (from one previous marriage).

 Somehow when I manifested this vision of leaving our lives behind and moving to an exotic foreign country I had envisioned us freed of all ties to our past and possessions, gleefully racing down the highway with nothing but the clothes on our backs. At the time I had not considered how this was going to be achieved. After inventorying and sorting everything we began having garage sales and packing boxes to go to the Salvation Army. We pawned off everything they would take on our friends and relatives. As the storage lockers and closets slowly emptied we began to think that perhaps we could do this after all.

It was now June of 2006 and time to put the condo on the market. We didn't want to take any chances and hired a house stager to help expedite things. She had us paint the entire apartment beige from stem to stern and redo the kitchen and bathroom floors with something more neutral. She felt that a lot of our furniture wasn't right and that we should rent some to show the place. Good thing we still had storage lockers, but it sure felt like a step backwards! I guess she knew what she was talking about because the condo sold for more than we were asking at our first open house.

Beige, Beige, Beige

We were very surprised that our home had sold so quickly and stunned when the new owners wanted us to vacate within the week. At the end of the week we stumbled exhausted and sleep-deprived from our home, rabbit cage held between us, and wondered what the heck we were going to do then....

To be continued....