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Everybody starts with a first BlogHer post. This shouldn't be a scary thing. But it is. I populate web pages almost everyday at work. I've written online training courses and instruction manuals. I’ve written newsletters for a writers association. But even just filling out my member profile and my list of favorite things was hard. In the box for my favorite blogs, do I put the URL? Or just the name of the blog? After I press Submit, where does all that stuff go? And what does it look like when it gets there?
I've had my own blog - http://achaessawrites.wordpress.com/ - for almost two years now, but pretty much kept it to friends, family, and lucky surfers. The CTO at my company found it in November and he's been prodding me ever since to step into the Real World of Blogging and pointed me to BlogHer. Well, here goes.
I moved to Mexico City in October 2006 with my husband. I've moved so many times in my life (something like 43 places by the time I was 48) that I figured this would just be one more move only my new address would be in Spanish. I had planned for this move for 8 years. I spoke the local tongue with an accent so authentic that Mexicans in Seattle asked me where I was from in Mexico. I had visited my in-laws every year and the adoration was mutual. I got along with my step-daughter, what little we could sneak to see of her (that's another story, this particular scorned Mexican woman is a breed apart). I even learned how to cook the basics - red salsa, green salsa, pozole. Miguel and I had a joyful, stable relationship. I did some networking and secured a remote job with a Silicon Valley company. I had all my bases covered. I was healthy, happy, and ready for adventure. I was Ready.
How wrong can wrong be?
Seriously. How wrong can wrong be? How was it that I didn't have a clue about what a drastic change this would be? A friend who has lived abroad said she'd be interested in seeing how my priorities would change after a year. Little did I know how on target her question was.
Miguel is Mexican and his family lives here - and his 11 year old daughter. We got married in 2000 but the deal was that we would stay in Seattle until he became a US citizen and then we'd move back to his family's neighborhood. I wanted to be here when his daughter hits adolescence because her mother is really abusive and if the daughter decides to run away I wanted to make sure that her dad was here for her to run to, instead of ending up on the street. So, anyway, Miguel became a US citizen in May 2006 and we sold our house in July and moved here in October.
It's hard to make a move for any reason when it means leaving a place as beautiful as Seattle. That's been the biggest adjustment - there is nothing beautiful about the northwestern edge of Mexico City where we live. It’s not like those calendar photos with buildings painted in colonial blue, golden yellow, terracotta and whitewash, quaint lanes with bougainvillea spilling out their purple blossoms over wrought iron fences, balconies stuffed with blooming pots. Here it’s all unpainted concrete, bad roads, few trees, severely polluted rivers, open sewers (yep, those same rivers), trash everywhere. And the people! The ones you meet personally are really nice, but as a society they're pushy, rude, and really scary drivers. Imagine 28 million people, no urban planning, and no traffic engineers. It gives the phrase “urban sprawl” a dimensionally different meaning.
Last month we moved into a third-story flat that we designed and built on
