The morning I decided to quit my job the American economy collapsed.
Needless to say I was nervous about my decision.
I was raised by a mother that had fully embraced the hippie movement. She had quit high-powered positions to travel Europe and work on a kibbutz in Israel. From there she worked in a health food store for almost nothing but the satisfaction of knowing she was attuning herself to a greater cause. Not long before I was born she found God through an East Indian guru and renounced everything her traditional parents stood for. Her message was clear – choose your own truth; she lived this by example and always supported me to do the same.
A tip for future parents: if you want sensible, responsible children then live your life as nonconformist as possible. Make an example of the bohemian lifestyle and your children’s rebellion will be to look at life through a square lens, seeing themselves as the world’s future doctors or lawyers. While my complete lack of mathematic skills and negligent eye for detail prohibited me from entering the aforementioned professions I did manage to pursue the most rational of all artistic fields – graphic design. Unlike my mother, my life was about searching for society’s box and happily jumping inside of it, making sure to shut the lid behind me in case anything unpredictable tried to follow me inside. Sure my life had a few eccentric flourishes, but in the most part it was constructed out of all the experiences one should have to be considered a normal and productive member of western society. No part of society’s box was instructing me to leave it behind in Canada and move to Mexico but for some reason I just couldn’t shake the idea.
When you are raised by someone that trusts that the universe provides, you end up being the worrier in the family. As the news began to roll in about the collapse of capitalism as we knew it I began to have visions, not of living the sweet life in Mexico, but instead of our inevitable slide into Great Depression poverty. Very soon, along with every other middle class North American, V and I would be living hand to mouth. V would learn to play the harmonica and I would make us clothes out of flour sacks. We would finally settle in a cabin we cobbled together out of apple crates and kill wildlife for our daily meals, no longer able to sustain the finicky vegetarian diet both of us had been raised on. Life would be hard - finally our generation was to have its comeuppance - our grandparents sighing ‘we told you so’ from their graves. My dusty hobo inspired imaginings became my constant companions and while everyone was congratulating me on my new life plan I was busy forecasting all the reasons why choosing my own truth was going to lead me straight to disaster.
Free spirit I was not.
I had spent the last four years working at a company that had given me a lot of support and opportunities. I was sad to leave them and they were sad to see me go but no one took it harder than my ‘Big Boss’, the CEO of the company. While I was busy haranguing myself for never learning how to hop a train or barter with bootlegged liquor Big Boss decided to convince me to stay with another form of mental torture – all the things that go wrong to foreigners in Mexico. Now that I am living in Mexico I have often wondered who is in charge of their PR because clearly they are being paid mucho dinero to sabotage their own country. Of course at the time I had no idea that Mexico’s evils were mostly smoke and mirrors and so when Big Boss would drift by my desk with, ‘I hear it’s hurricane season in Mexico. Need more than a big umbrella to survive a mess like that, heh?’ I had only one choice – put my own doom and gloom visions on hold and say with passion and conviction that I knew exactly what I was doing with my life. Right?
As it turned out, all I needed to fully embrace my new adventure was someone more fearful of cracking the lid to society’s box than me. As the days wore on I heard about Mexico’s drug wars, car hijackings, gringo kidnappings, corrupt government officials, even the all too possible death by dengue fever. As Mexico continued it’s daily role in the hot seat I became more and more relaxed, excited almost, each new accusation making me more solid in my decision.
On my final day at work Big Boss waltzed into my office, looked me in the eye and said, ‘Bre, some friends of mine were at a club in Acapulco and a head rolled across the dance floor. A. Human. Head.’
There was nothing more to say than, ‘Big Boss, I love you too.’
That night over dinner my dad raised his wine glass, ‘Here’s to you, my daughter, for finally, after 30 years of living the most sensible of lives, doing something totally and completely random. We couldn’t be more proud of you.’
