It was here, in this pool at Secrets Resorts Akumal last March that I started dreaming about a change.  A real change.

I’m a Wisconsin girl who has always had a dream of living somewhere warm.  To say I am not a fan of winter is an understatement.  I barely hang on during the long…long…did I mention long….winters.  This year we had a blizzard on my birthday. In mid-April.  Not cool.

We always said when the timing is right we all move somewhere warm.  But life is life and the timing has never been right. You are probably nodding your head up and down right now.  I’m sure you can relate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life.  I love that God has blessed me with 4 children to raise.  I have a husband who I adore and a beautiful granddaughter.  My parents are close, siblings not far away, in-laws just down the road.  But the winters, they crush my soul.

A year and a half ago, I started to get sick.  Not one thing sick, a whole bunch of things sick. Diagnosis after diagnosis with no clear indication of why.  I kept hearing my doctors say things like.  “I’ve never seen this before.  This is rare.” and “Highly unusual.”  I felt like a game of Wack-a-Mole.  Get one problem resolved and another pops up.  By January of this year I could barely function.  By the end of the work day, I just needed to go to bed.  My kids suffered, my marriage suffered, my work suffered.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a do’er.  I keep busy and always have my hands in a million projects.  Being sidelined  was devastating to me.  I felt like a total failure.

Things came to a head in February this year when I was hospitalized with a rare blood clot and a raging infection in my abdomen.  Never heard of that happening?  Neither had the doctors.

They were quite literally Googling to figure out how to help me.

**Side Note: they did actually make it to medical journals before deciding on a course of treatment.

My husband and I had a trip to Mexico planned with friends in March.  It wasn’t until the Friday before we left that I decided to try to go on the trip.  I still wasn’t well.  My friend Jess and I planned how to get back to the States quickly if I needed to be hospitalized (Mexico is out of network for our insurance).

I’m sure some people thought I was nuts to go on the trip.  I sort of thought I was nuts too!  It turned out to be a trip that could change the course of my life

We went on a bike ride through the town of Akumal past a row of beachfront condos. I was curious about them. On a whim I started doing my own Googling about property in Mexico and found a new condo development that was being built in San Crisanto, northeast of the city of Merida in the Yucatan state.

I casually mentioned it to my husband who was a little intrigued, but I was a lot intrigued.  I read all I could about Merida on that trip and that is when my dream started to take hold.

What if, what if, what if….

At the very least, we could have a very nice beachfront condo to use for vacations and as an investment property.  At the most, we could craft a new way of life for ourselves and our daughter (we only have 1 left at home).

It was a feeling that wouldn’t go away.

What if, what if, what if….

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” – Maria Robinson