Here A Tiff, There A Tiff

Making a huge life change brings challenges for everyone, and we are no exception.

Since May 2017 we got married, decided to sell the house, Glenn retired, we found a great Realtor, we sold just about everything we owned and emptied our house out, hired a design company to work with contractors and stagers to fix up some portions of the house for sale and to stage it for viewing, met with our financial advisor several times, visited the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento for visa information, looked at international/expat health insurance companies, set up our account with the library so that we could read books online, moved to our AirBnb in Albany, got immunizations, got a copy of my official birth certificate from Canada for Mexico, bought and packed suitcases, mind-mapped a budget for the first 3 months of the year; which we are sticking to rather well, went through the holidays, mind-mapped 3 more budgets for the next 10 years based on what our house proceeds might be, and on and on.

We have done a great job of weathering all of this together and we rarely have any kind of tiff (notice, no fights, there just isn’t anything that big to warrant one of those) but differences of opinion do happen and we promised to make this an honest blog. When we get a little huffy with each other it usually happens when we are tired, overloaded or stressed and/or Glenn is hungry. We may be having to deal with a bunch of paperwork or decisions that day, or deal with the horrible traffic and parking in the East Bay as we do errands all over town or have deadlines or appointments. Our biggest stressor right now is anything having to do with the house or money, as we are living on savings and don’t know when the house will sell. Yesterday our friend David forwarded an article saying that housing sales are going to take a hit because of rising interest rates. Added to that was the fact that when we visited the house a part for the shower that needed fixing was gone, to where we don’t know. That set Glenn into a tizzy and triggered a bit of a bump up in stress levels and consequently a time out for both of us. These come-back-down to-earth times are not needed for long though as we simply cannot stay upset with each other. We have always talked to each other about anything and that is what makes our relationship so great. If we blow off a bit of steam, do some reflection and then come back to talk it out and make each other laugh we feel we are right where we want to be. We are both each others best friends and know everything about each other.  And Glenn has seen me at my absolute worst (I have ADHD and other issues) when everything is chaos and nothing makes sense. And he still married me. We are looking forward to moving to a less stressful environment where we will have no house or landlord responsibilities and no car or job to worry about. We know Mexico will have it’s own stresses but don’t think they will be as all encompassing as the ones we leave behind.

Because we have been planning this move since June, and originally we were going to be in San Miguel in August/September last year, we are getting really antsy to have everything done, hightail it out of here and get settled. We have been living in limbo. I can’t imagine doing all of this if Glenn was still working, so he retired at exactly the right time. But that also means we are doing the 24/7 togetherness all the time, which is a bit different than when he worked 10 hours a day a room away.  We are learning that we need to make sure and schedule time for ourselves too now, to be really happy campers. In Mexico, we will each do separate classes; yoga, tai-chi, Spanish, even cooking perhaps and we hope to get involved in the community. That will mix things up. In the meantime, if we have a little tiff once in a while that just brings us closer as we continue to enjoy each other and make our lives the best they can be.