Why I Moved to Mexico
The first time I drove down to Baja, I told myself it was a working trip.
I had a laptop, a few client deadlines, and the loose plan of being back in San Diego by Thursday. That was a lie I had been telling myself for years, in different shapes. The “working trip” framing was just permission to leave without making it mean anything.
It meant something.
The seven things I packed
Most of what came with me on the move fit in two suitcases and a backpack. Everything else got sold, donated, or stuffed into the storage unit I keep telling myself I’ll empty one of these days. The seven things I actually used in the first month:
- One good chef’s knife
- A French press and the bag of beans I bought at the airport
- Two pairs of jeans and a stack of t-shirts that I rotate through without much thought
- The notebook I write longhand in when I don’t want the screen to know what I’m thinking
- Running shoes I’d had for two years and somehow still fit right
- A set of cheap speakers because the apartment came with bluetooth nothing
- A photo of my niece on her birthday, which is the only physical photo I own anymore
That list is the rest of the series in miniature. What I thought I’d need versus what I actually used. Who I thought I was versus who I am when nobody’s watching.
Why I’m writing this series
I’ve spent the last few years building businesses, learning AI, going to networking events, and giving advice about how to grow a service business. Most of that advice still works. But the version of me giving it has changed in ways the LinkedIn post version of my life never quite captures.
This series — “Falling In, Falling Out” — is about the part that doesn’t fit on a LinkedIn post. Moving to Mexico. Falling for the country. Falling for someone here. And then what happened when the version of the story I was telling myself stopped matching the version that was actually happening.
It’s not a confessional series. It’s a what-I-learned series. The lessons just happen to come from places no business book is going to send you.
What’s coming next
A dozen or so posts, roughly monthly. Some about Mexico — the food, the rhythm, the weird gringo loneliness that hits when you realize your Spanish is good enough for the carnicería but not for the conversation you actually want to have. Some about relationships — not the gory details, but the patterns I keep noticing about how I show up, when I leave, and what I think love is supposed to look like when I’m being honest.
If you stick around, I’ll try to make it worth the click.
— Michael