✦ Part 2 ✦
We never once visited Mexico. We simply packed up and moved here four months ago.
Howard and I were born in the Caribbean. We came to America as children with our separate families and spent our whole lives living in America. Our parents certainly didn’t vacation in America before coming. Adventure is in our blood.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, American inflation has been strangling consumers. Howard and I began discussing our future—where we would live and when he would retire—almost as soon as the nest emptied back in 2017. But our talks were vague, pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. Once the pandemic hit in 2020 and prices began to skyrocket, a noticeable shift began rippling through us and through everyone around us.
Fear. Frustration. Anger. Wonder. Despair.
Life became uncertain and disappointing. The malaise that had cloaked the country since the election of Donald Trump suddenly felt heavier. We always knew we would one day leave the red state of Pennsylvania. We just weren’t sure where we wanted to go or where we could afford to retire.
We were tired of being surrounded by whites. We wanted to be surrounded by brown people. We wanted to live someplace where brown people called the shots, where brown people were the ones in charge of their own government and social infrastructure.
We chose Mexico because it was far enough away to give us the new life we were seeking, but still close enough to easily return to the States for visits with our families.
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November 2021
Once the decision was made to move, it was time to plan and begin prepping. For me, this would be the fun and sometimes overwhelming part. I’m a natural researcher. I love learning new things. But when the work that’s necessary for a given project piles up too fast, I privately freak the fuck out.
First things first
I watched a bunch of Youtube videos. I saw beautiful, brilliant, and breathtakingly friendly black people sharing their wisdom about life in Mexico. I was in heaven! We had been living in Pennsylvania as the minority in a sea of white faces for almost twenty years. Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve had plenty of beautiful relationships and fabulous experiences with varying white people my entire life. But facts are facts. Large numbers of white people, both subtly and overtly, have made living in America stressful as fuck for blacks and other people of color.
As for blacks getting along with blacks under the weight America’s racial divide . . . .
If you’re a black person living in America, the chances of you being breathtakingly friendly are extremely slim. Hesitantly friendly, maybe. But breathtakingly friendly? Nah! American black life wears us out too much for that.
A clarifying note: Just because a black person has moved to Mexico, doesn’t mean they suddenly become extra friendly. New countries don’t work those kinds of miracles on humans. But I’m pleased to announce that I have met a few breathtakingly friendly black people (ex-pats like me and Howard) here in Mexico, similar to the ones I saw on Youtube during my research.
~ ~
Next!
I made a list of all the things we needed to do before we moved to Mexico. Here are some of the key items from the list:
- Bank accounts—decide what accounts to close and which new bank to open an account with. (I closed our local Pennsylvania bank accounts due to their exorbitant foreign transaction fees. We needed a bank that would let us access our money from Mexico without burying us in high fees).
- Create a spreadsheet of expenses for moving
- Research how to sell a house
- Find a realtor
- Paint all the rooms of our house white
- Declutter (get rid of a shit ton of years and years of accumulated stuff)
- Learn how to sell your stuff online (Facebook marketplace, Offerup, yard sale, etc.)
- Write our last will and testament
- Apply for updated passports
- Apply for residency at the Mexican Consulate in Philadelphia
Next!
We hired painters because Howard was working full-time and it would have been too exhausting to have him paint in addition to all the yard work and household things he was already doing on the weekends. As for me, fuck that. I’m selective about my physical labor engagements. Besides, have you painted an entire house lately? That shit is hard!
January 2022
The painters—a Latino family business—we hired were headed by a very easygoing handyman who had done work for us in previous years. The entire painting job took three weeks. Thank Goddess for him because, besides painting, our handyman ended up hauling away a LOT of garbage for us. He saved us extra bucks big time. Hiring strangers would have been more expensive.
February 2022
I found a realtor online. After reading a bunch of stellar reviews about this woman, I called and drilled her with my researched house-selling questions. She sold me on her real estate knowledge and I agreed to let her sell our house. She was a bit of a Karen—it wasn’t long before she showed a noticeable amount of passive-aggressive fuckery—but she would go on to sell our house for a nice profit. We hung in there with her and ended up being very impressed with her work.
March – April 2022
Now it was time to really hustle. Remember, Howard was still working, driving an eighteen-wheeler day in and day out. Since I’m the writer, I was working from home. But to be honest, I was getting very little writing done with all the move preparations going on. Much of the legwork of prepping for this move fell on me. We were both working hard and feeling the stress of getting ready for this enormous move. We were changing everything familiar to us to start all over in a new country.
Our lives were flipped upside down during those months. It felt like all of our daily routines were suspended—due to packed boxes in every room, empty spaces resulting from sold-off furniture, strangers in and out of our home, etc.—for one year until the move finally happened. Howard and I were suddenly having more arguments than we’d ever had before. We were both definitely feeling the pressure. No lie: we almost broke up twice!
Side note: I’m happy to report, Howard and I are still together. Our bond was made stronger by managing to overcome the most challenging year together to date.
~ ~ ~
Sell! Sell! Sell!!
Facebook Marketplace was the shizzle, yo! Cha-ching! I don’t know if the rules have changed since spring of 2022, but I was able to make money without having to give a cut to Facebook. I’m sure that won’t last because, well . . . capitalism.
On Facebook Marketplace I sold furniture, our bicycles, my sewing machine, a deep fryer, car tires, my desk, bookshelves, and so much more. I also sold a few things through an app called, Offerup. Similar to Facebook, there were no fees for me to sell. Even if you’re not moving, I highly recommend taking inventory of the things you’re not using and selling them to make a few bucks.
My favorite part of selling was meeting so many beautiful people. People who I had no idea lived in such close proximity to us. All these years we’d lived mostly in solitude in East Stroudsburg, PA. (That’s one of the drawbacks of living in a suburb or rural area like northeastern PA. The routine of driving everywhere prevents opportunities for meeting new people.)
Side note: Maybe you’re thinking, it doesn’t sound like life in Pennsylvania was so bad. Maybe we just didn’t know enough people? Let me be clear. These meetups were extremely brief. While there was an air of extra friendliness in the meetups, the exchange of items for money was quick. It was business friendliness. Most of the customers I was selling to were clear about keeping the exchange short– get in, get out! I once made the rookie mistake of asking for a review—FB Marketplace ratings make a seller look more credible and trustworthy—after a woman was already back in her car, ready to drive off. When I asked her to roll down her window, in a nanosecond, her facial expression went from friendly to what-the-fuck-do-you-want. I giggled at my rookie-ness all the way home.
~ ~ ~ ~
As I was saying, there were all these sweet people who were friendly and easy to chat with during the meetups. Of course, I met a couple of assholes too. But that was rare and their money was green, so I didn’t care. I only dealt with cash. With online marketplaces, Cash App is also an option but I’m too old school for that.
May – June 2022
Selling our house
I don’t watch television, so all the popular shows about house selling missed me. I learned in my research that staging a house for sale is an actual thing. So I shopped. But I shopped with absolutely no intention of keeping the household goodies I was buying. I bought pretty home décor items like fake flowers, fake plants, bathroom ornaments, and table centerpieces.
I staged our house in a lovely display of clutter-free living and understated pretty things. It worked! Our house sold within the first week of home showings. Two weeks later I gathered up all the receipts and price tags I had filed away and returned all my staging purchases to the stores from which they came.
Our closing date was pushed back by seven weeks from the day of the buyer’s formal offer. This gave us just enough time to finish packing, empty the house completely, and move out.
By July 1 we were living in a hotel. Four days later, we checked into an Airbnb.
Mexico was just on the horizon, a mere month away . . . .
Love, Mia 💕
Originally published: December 2022
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