Eventually, Paradise Has Laundry

There’s a version of Mexico that exists for people who visit.

It’s the Mexico of lazy mornings, long lunches, colourful streets, tacos eaten from somewhere you stumbled across, margaritas, and sunsets that seem almost too good to be real. It’s the Mexico I came to love before I lived here, and it’s still a pretty wonderful version of it.

But living here is something else entirely.

On a weekday, my day generally starts with coffee and some time with the dogs on the patio. It’s not exactly the peaceful, contemplative start to the day that the phrase “coffee on the patio” might suggest.

Luna always has the morning zoomies and inevitably manages to find something revolting to roll around in, while Ollie’s daily battles with the iguana who lives on top of our wall can be quite the spectator sport.

Then I work.

I write for a living, although that sounds considerably simpler than it actually is. I wear several hats, and while they all involve writing, they require very different kinds of thinking. There’s the Mexico work, the municipal government work, and the stuff that is supposed to be fun.

Moving between them can be surprisingly taxing, particularly when I’m trying to come up with an idea for one while my brain is still firmly stuck in another. Some days the gears shift easily. Other days they absolutely do not.

And now there’s a new business in the mix, which I can’t believe is just a bit over a week away from launching, which has added another very busy and stressful layer to the whole thing.

There are days when I feel as though I have plenty to say and days when I can stare at a blank screen for an entirely unreasonable amount of time, convinced that I’ve apparently used up every idea I will ever have.

This, of course, has nothing particularly to do with Mexico. Writers get stuck everywhere. People get stressed everywhere. Work is still work, even when you’re fortunate enough to do something you love.

Lunch is usually quick. A bowl of fruit, maybe some cottage cheese with lemon pepper, a packet of tuna, some cucumbers slathered in hot sauce, or whatever Omar cooked the night before. Every so often, though, I’ll carve out time for lunch with friends.

Those lunches are important.

When you work from home, there’s always something else you could be doing. Another deadline, another email, another idea you should be thinking about. It can be remarkably easy to let work fill every available space, so I’ve become much better at recognising that sometimes the work can wait and lunch with a friend can’t.

Then it’s back to work, until eventually the computer gets closed and I’m ready to veg in front of the television.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that there might be a grocery shop, a vet appointment, or one of the many small things that make up the running of a household. Omar is ridiculously helpful, but he has his own work. And with two dogs and three cats, the list of things to do has a habit of growing regularly, particularly when one of the dogs is getting older and needs a little more attention.

It’s all very ordinary.

And that, I think, is what I find most interesting about living somewhere that people come to visit.

There’s nothing particularly Mexican about working all day and then watching television. There’s nothing exotic about having lunch, doing the shopping, or trying to remember whether you’ve run out of fabric softener you could have sworn you bought recently.

Yet somehow, it feels different.

Perhaps because I’m no longer looking at my life through the eyes of someone who’s waiting for the next interesting thing to happen. The interesting thing is simply that this is my life.

The weekends have their own rhythm. I often still have work to do, and if I do, I do it. I don’t begrudge working on weekends the way I used to. There’s something different about working when you’ve built a life around the work you actually want to be doing.

Omar and I also make a point of doing something together. Sometimes it’s nothing more complicated than a dip in the pool. If we’re feeling particularly exciting, we may even through a cookout into the mix. Sometimes we get on the motorcycle and ride somewhere for a few hours or the day. Sometimes we decide we need a proper adventure and disappear for a few of them.

There doesn’t always have to be a plan. We can simply go. And when we’ve had enough, we come home.

That still feels like something of a luxury to me.

When you’re visiting Mexico, eventually you have to leave it. You have to pack your suitcase, head to the airport, and return to wherever home is. But when you live here, you can have the adventure and then come back to your own bed.

At some point, without really noticing it happening, Mexico stopped being the place I was exploring and became the place where I live my very ordinary life.

It’s where I work, where I get stuck for ideas, where I have lunch with friends, where I worry about the animals, where I continue to build a partnership with the man I love, where I watch television at the end of a long day, and where I sometimes get on a motorcycle and disappear for a while.

It’s also where the sunsets are still ridiculous, and the food is still wonderful, and there are moments when I look around and think, “bloody hell, I actually live here.”

Perhaps that’s the funny thing about finding yourself living somewhere you once dreamed about visiting.

Eventually, paradise has laundry.

It has grocery shopping, and bills, and work, and vet appointments, and days when you can’t think of a single thing to write.

But every now and then, it has a 12 peso taco and a sunset, too.

And I’ll take the whole lot.