Insanely, we actually have a place to live. We found a few on craigslist, and had a realtor/friend check them out. One of the four was outstanding, the clear winner, and we signed a lease from here and faxed it back while I was still on Isla Mujeres. I’ve looked at all the photos a dozen times, I’ve studied the neighborhood on googlemaps and used walkscore to plot my course to grocery stores and Nia class. It seems right for us but it’s a little weird to move in to an apartment you’ve never laid eyes on. Then again, I moved to mexico without ever having been. We were eager to get settled, to have a place to go to. We’re not over adventures, but craving stability. And after ten days in hotels it will be so amazing to sleep in our new, if temporary home.

We are lucky enough to get to raid my mother-in-law’s storage space and expect to inherit some cool family pieces as well as a big kid bed (larger than our Mexican matrimonial from Mega), Oriental rugs and Lord knows what else. We’ll still have to restock on everything for the household, but that’s what Target and Costco are for. I’ve heard from friends who returned to the US after living abroad that the sheer amount of choices is offensive, overwhelming, and gauche. I still plan to wheel through the happy aisles blithely adding goods to my basket. It’s going to be consumerific.

I know we’re not going back to the same country. A lot has gone down while we were fulfilling our fantasies in Yucatan. I would be stupid if I weren’t a little nervous. But I feel prepared, much more so than when I graduated from college and was pushed by tragedy from the nest into the cruel world. I haven’t lived in a brand new city in four years. We’re changing country, expecting seasons and risking a much cooler clime. We’re going back to being renters, living in a shared building. We’ll have new responsibilities and self-imposed expectations. It’s all going to be different again. I can’t wait.

On July 2 we won’t have a truck. We won’t live at the beach. We will be Americans in America, which is admittedly less interesting, but I hope will be lovely and stimulating and good. Perched in our new apartment, likely unsettled, but hopefully home.

Because it’s going to get hectic. A little more than a week after I get back from Playa, we’re taking the bus one last time to the Cancun airport to fly to Tallahassee. It’s crazy. This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere since I left my parents house for college at age 17. This was the first home we ever really made together. It’s going to be difficult to pack it up and go, even though it is absolutely the right time to do so. We arrived here four years ago with nothing. A few articles of clothing, laptops, sunblock, and stars in our eyes. Looking back on arrival posts I love our energetic voices and sweet insights. We were puppies. Adorable! And though sometimes it feels like Mexico has hardened us, I know that a change of scenery will bring us renewed energy and better perspective on all this. We loved this life often and fiercely. And we will love our new life too, I hope. We’ve gained so much, not least of all complete trust in each other, which I have written about before, but can’t praise enough. Even though we’re going home and it’s exciting and familiar, I am sure certain aspects will be daunting. Change is hard. But having a partner to get me through anything means everything.

I hope America is ready for us. Because we’re coming back bigger and better than before, like the Cloverfield monster. (spoilers!)

Once I was a contestant at a Coney Island Sideshow by the Seashore, embroiled in a game called This or That! It was either the cruel existential dilemma or all the shots of tequila I had at Puzzles a few minutes prior that caused so much confusion; I misjudged the weight of a boob by forty pounds, give or take; I lost the game swiftly and was banished from the stage without so much as a Rice-A-Roni parting gift. So much for fame and glory. Years have passed and I am still trying to come to terms with choosing between and being satisfied. The world is vast and myriad opportunities are missed every day. I just have to hope that in a parallel universe I am acting in an Indonesian passion play or sifting through the remnants of a South American empire. So that one’s brain does not implode from sheer possibility, I suppose, we often pare down our options to a binary conclusion. Which is how I’ve spent this morning wondering how my life would be different if we’d chosen Merida over the beach.

Merida is layered, culturous and varied. Where we are now life is almost embarrassingly simple, still against the tumult of the constantly crashing ocean. Though the drive is no more than thirty minutes there is an invisible barrier that makes easy visits uncomfortable, if not impossible. Sometimes all the pleasure derived from a day at the market, at the movies, doing something lazy and lovely and interesting can be stripped as you battle out of town through traffic up the hazy highway and ramble over topes and stone strewn sand back into sleepy Chelem. It sucks and I don’t do it often. Life there is remote and distant from life here. There, to my envious eye, looks like Mexico, while here often feels like a forgotten stretch of cement, plastic and sand. We are outside of all cultures and countries, in a world of our own device. Had we done any of it differently…I can’t say with certainty that it would have impacted the outcome at all. I think so, but maybe not: perhaps all those sliding doors lead to the same predestined result. But I don’t think so.

I can’t help but feel a twinge of envy when I see evidence of dinner parties and impromptu salsa classes, and hear anecdotes of friendly shop keepers and cafe culture in that tropical Europe just south of here. There is a whole teeming society behind garden walls, populated with mirthful multicultural groups creating a new language from old lives and other customs. Had we lived there longer we may have been to more events, learned and laughed with interesting characters passing through on their way to LA or Cartagena. People mean to pause in Merida, to catch their breath and end up losing decades as time slowly unravels from the wheel. That might have been a nice way to pass the past four years. I sometimes fear I am missing everything and have to remind myself that what I am doing is valid and real. This is my life, for better or worse. I chose This. Not That. And this is stuff I will miss when I’m back on the other side. Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.

Have we told you about Merida? Just thirty minutes from the beach there is a white city of grace and duality. If you crave old world style steep yourself in historic centro, where you can stroll the square admiring colonial architecture and the oldest cathedral in North America, watch children play in the park and take a horse-drawn carriage through the charming streets. Shops selling local handicrafts, art museums and shady courtyard restaurants featuring simple tacos and a few cold beers proffer respite from the heat. If you prefer more contemporary conveniences the north end has casually elegant restaurants, sparkling new malls and movie theaters with reclining leather seats and waiter service. In Merida there is something for every taste. And when you are tired go home to the beach.

Our house is a true oasis. Close the gates and leave the world of work and cares behind; this is a green space where you can unwind and once again mingle with your thoughts and hopes and daydreams. Whether you’re sitting, reading in an Adirondak chair under the leafy canopy, listening to the fountain babble and palm fronds rustling in the wind or bathing on the beach side all alone with the pleasant exception of the occasional passing pelican or flamingo flock, you will rediscover your sense of balance and wonder. Watch the spectacular sunset with a cold cocktail in hand and wait as the stars slowly appear. When you wish to rest, go inward. You’ll find cozy couches, air conditioning and a down comforter. Sleep soundly and dream of Yucatan.

Retire early, take a year-long sabbatical, work from the comfort of your ocean front home, barefoot and bikini-clad. You’re worth it.

Not like the months leading up to leaving. I was a wreck, all panic attacks and acting out. Going home is both easier and more frought. We have high expectations for each other, America and I.  Am I ready to return? Will America deliver on her promises? I can’t stay here, not a moment longer. Four months and one moment longer. I hope it’s enough time.

What if we’re misfits who will never find a home? We’ll wander the earth forever, searching for roots that don’t exist.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

As I told you last Tuesday we’re leaving it all. That’s the plan at this point, five months out. But the sweet sorrow of parting with our stuff just might be too much to take, in addition to saying so long to our beloved Tripod. Every item was hardwon, is treasured, was bought with intention and feels like ours together. In our last New Haven apartment were primary colored remnants of Malcolm’s dorm life, representations of my granny chic phase, and various uncurated piles of papers and sweaters we just couldn’t move past. Most of those things I do not miss or even remember and I wonder if the same will happen after we’ve extracted ourselves from the Azcue sofa set, hand painted rustic chairs that bite the backs of your thighs, the Christmas Vihuela and overpriced Liverpool storage baskets.

Every iteration has its own set of wares and context, as always, is critical. This period, which will be known to Future Malcolm and Future Jillian as alternately “Those lazy, crazy Mexico days” and ” The Yucatecan Renaissance and Last Times of Our Youth”, is populated with art and appliances we’ve found on the street, on the beach, given and received as gifts, and made with our own busy hands. We’re bringing the books that we stubbornly muled down over the course of seven or eight trips to the States. But other than that, we’re traveling light. Really, what do we need?

America is brimming with goods and I intend to gather everything Anthropologie, Restoration Hardware, and Trader Joe’s has to offer and jump into the bobo booty with glee and abandon, as a child into a pile of raked autumn leaves. It was cathartic to purge our old and used belongings. We felt free and Zen ascetic. I believe this process is cyclical and we will one day in the future feel compelled to cast off our treasures and run away to some fresh paradise. But at this point in our adventure we yearn to be conspicuous consumers.  It is time to furnish our next incarnation with pleasing and useful things and to do so properly we must also leave some well-loved possessions behind.

* This is a lie