that moment

We are incredibly lucky to spend part of our year in a wonderful warm (figurative and literally) place over the winter months. Relative to many many people in Mexico, we are wealthy beyond imagination.  From our point of view, we are doing OK, but, at least from my point of view we are far, far from  our countries definition of wealthy.  We  decided to take some of our life savings and purchase a small condo in Puerto Vallarta last year.  (by the way, I get it, the fact that we can do this is something that is not in the cards for many).  We believe our investment in our joy factor and our future is worth a whole lot more than any RRSP.  Anyway, I digress.  From a Canadian point of view, for most people, spending $10 or $20 or even $50 is not a big deal.  For a Mexican working here, many make between $7 and $15 a day, so their perspective about wealth and "disposable" income is very different.  Sadly, the minimum daily wage here is as low as 88 pesos per day, and the truth is that some Margaritas are more than that.  One Margarita.  Hopefully a good one.  And I have paid a full Mexican's day of wages on one Margarita.
But anyway, that was not what I wanted to talk about.  We are in a very small condo complex (only 8 units) and the condo organization pays for two staff - Billy and Margo.  Billy is the property manager, he speaks English very well, does everything you can imagine that needs doing.  Without him, we would be sunk.  (By the way, he is paid well above the minimum amount noted above).. Margo, who is Billies mother does all of the cleaning, included in our condo fees is cleaning once a week. She makes less, but works half days. So, we have this sort of weird employer/wild income discrepancy thing. Billie recently got married, and is pretty thrilled that he has been able to save and buy some land.  He is building a house and told me 'you have to make the nest first" when I asked him if he planned to have a family.  He works 6 days a week for us, and after he leaves here at 4 or 5, he drives taxi until 11 at night to make extra money.  On Sunday, his day off, he works on his house.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Shifting gears

So I stopped working at my full time career job about 3 weeks ago.  While I was looking forward to the day I could stop, now that I have stopped I am realizing just how much decompression will be needed.  Decompression for me involves a sort of vegetative state, I am doing a whole lot of  nothing.  The best nothing is walking,  I have noticed that I am often tired - even sleepy during the day.  Not from activity or work, in fact the opposite.  I am doing almost nothing, and yet am exhausted.  So I set out on a walk, learning to make no commitment to destination or length, just start walking.  It reminds me of Forest Gump, one day he just started running, because he felt like it.  One day I walked over 5 km's.  None of it felt long, or hard, or difficult, I enjoyed all of it.  Just soaking up life, and nature, sounds and smells, sun on my skin, wind in my hair.  Perhaps this is a cleansing.  It is a cleansing.  I feel refreshed a little more each day.