How I got Here.

When you meet someone who lives or has lived in another country two questions usually come to mind. How and Why. While I'm sure normally the answers are really interesting I don't think mine is so much.

When I was in my twenties I wanted to do anything and everything except be living in Illinois and work with my father. Not that my dad was a bad guy but it seemed to be the destiny of over half my family and I was never one to take the road well traveled. It was a tough time for me all my friends were getting married and having kids and I felt pretty directionless. I was convinced better things and a world of adventures awaited me elsewhere, among some of my genius ideas where the following: I was going to live in a trailer and go to North Dakota for the oil boom, save money move to some distant countries and take my chances, join the marines, save money buy an RV and live as a nomad, or my favorite buy and live in a sailboat (I know nothing about boats or sailing). However I was going to do it, I was getting out of Dodge.

In an ironic twist of fate my father told me if I wanted to come back and work for him he would send me to run an office the company was opening in Mexico. While I didn't really want to work with my dad (or the rest of my family) I saw this as my ticket and chance to finally get out of Illinois. If I was being honest with myself I would have told my dad I didn't think I had the qualifications to move to another country and start a business from scratch but I was cocky enough to think I could do it with some fast on the job training. I am reminded of the story were Antonio Banderas went for an interview for a movie in the states before he spoke English and he just said "yes" to everything and it landed him the job. Don't get me wrong I had success in getting promoted at other jobs and by that time I had a good resume but still this was a different animal. I accepted and over the course of the next three years we executed our plan to start the office which involved many, many trips to Mexico City where I became well acquainted with a level of chaos and an urban monstrosity this midwestern boy had never seen even in his dreams.

I can tell you that in that three year period of working to set the office up but still living at home in Illinois with spending a significant amount of time in CDMX was hard. You don't really feel like you can put roots down anywhere yet. It feels a little like purgatory youre forever in this transitional state. So depending on how long your planning takes you when you decide to live abroad know that that's a normal part of the process.

For anyone starting a new chapter in their life and going to live far away there comes a moment when reality really hits you. When all the planning is done and all the logistics taken care of that first moment that you close the door and realize "What the hell have I done." When my flight landed in August of 2017 I came with a lot of luggage and was sweating my balls off waiting in front of my apartment for the person to deliver me the keys. This was the busiest and biggest street of all of Mexico and I couldn't help but think the whole world was starting at me thinking about what an ass whole I was.

Those first couple weeks were very hard and honestly kind of a dark time in my life. I didn't know anyone, I had nothing to do because work wasn't opening up for another month, and I didn't even have the internet. It took telmex 2 whole months to fix my internet. I didn't reach out back to my family and friends back home because I didn't want to seem like a loser or a quitter. They all that I was living it up on Mexican beaches or something when in reality I was playing madden in my apartment cursing myself for this terrible life decision. Just knowing that you cant call up your best friend or your brother or cousin and hop in the car to hang out and see them is a daunting thing. That feeling of seperation from your homeland and everything you know and grew up in it's like you feel every single one of those miles thats between you and it.

My wants, goals, and desires in life have evolved so much since I came here nearly 10 years ago. Now, I'm 35, married, and I have my eyes on going home. I am no longer the wandering man I was in my 20's and I am certainly not discourging anyone who wants to live abroad I only want to show people that this is a big change and wherever you go the other country is going to change you. You're going to speak 2 languages, have 2 lives, and in many ways 2 personalities. Most of your loved ones wont know your life abroad and this can sometimes be hard for people. Naturally we want to share our accomplishments, our friends, our home with the people we love and knowing that in some cases that can't be done will create a sense of loniless when you go back home. This works the other way as well. Let's say you have friends or a partner even in your new county it's very human to want to show them your hometown, your culture, the baseball field where you first started playing, whatever it may be that's important to us, not being able to share that can create pain. Especially if you are in a country where people need a Visa to get into the U.S.

When I boarded the plane to finally move to Mexico I can honestly say I didn't understand to what extent my life was going to change, I didn't understand the seriousness of my decision to leave everything, I didn't understand what I was going to loose and I didn't understand what I was going to gain.