Love Letters to My Life #64: Is Mexico Calling?

Something is stirring ... just not sure what

I’ve done the “mid-life crisis” thing and the “what do I do now that I’ve retired” thing and probably a dozen or so other “things,” but something new seems to be shaking my foundation these days.

One of the hazards of being a senior Boomer is that the psychologists haven’t caught up and named the latest developmental twists. Hell, most of the psychologists have already retired or have far more interesting developmental trends to figure out. The pronouncements seem to be that people my age should have figured stuff out by now and be busy sharing their wisdom, nurturing the upcoming leaders of our world.

Fine and good, but what if something else is going on?

Or, at least that’s what I thought until I discovered that there is such a thing as a “late-life crisis.” As someone who never likes to be late to anything, I’d like to work a bit on the terminology … except I must be late because someone has already written a book about it … two years ago!

The authors state: “The late-life crisis, like its more famous younger sibling, the midlife crisis, really is a thing. Recent research has found that as many as one in three people over 60 will experience it in some form.

“While the midlife crisis is typically about the loss of opportunities, the late-life crisis is more about the loss of relevance. Stereotypically, during the midlife crisis, you dye your hair and buy a sports car; during the late-life crisis, it feels pointless to even get out of your bathrobe.”

Well, feeling relevant isn’t an issue and I don’t own a bathrobe (I know … not the point.) The authors of the book offer some interesting questions (shown below). However, they only made me think this isn’t the issue … or the solution. (Unless, of course I’m cruising the river of denial.)

Whatever this “thing” is, it came on suddenly … prompted by a most generous offer from an unlikely source.

Since moving back to Santa Barbara two years ago, Maria has cut my hair from her lovely in-home salon. I had recently moved back from Mexico, so we quickly fell into conversation about her family who still lives in Mexico.  She began to tell me about the home she and her husband are remodeling in a small town outside of Morelia, one of my favorite places, and generously told me I was welcome to stay there.

I blew it off the first time as just a nice gesture. However, when I went back a few weeks ago, she showed me photos and re-invited me to stay there. This time, I accepted, in general, for sometime in the future. The earth didn’t shake and I went on about my life.

However, something began to niggle. One of my most noted life failures revolves around learning Spanish. I’ve studied a lot, through almost all the known learning processes and have barely made it to the upper levels of the beginner stage. One of the factors in my leaving Mexico was realizing that any idea of fluency was probably out of reach and I was still years away from even being “conversational.”

So, when I began to dream of spending a month in Morelia, I thought I might as well dust the cobwebs off the bit of language I had learned. That brought me back to a learning blog I created while in Mexico. Back then, one of the things that became clear (as I worked my way through endless workbooks and classes) was that I was as fascinated by learning about learning as I was about learning Spanish. I spent an inordinate amount of time (instead of studying or, heaven forbid, speaking!) developing a learning/travel blog: Aventura Español.

For some reason, rediscovering that blog and that intense time of learning, creating and exploring the enchanting land of Mexico, threw me into a yearning that I’m having trouble deciphering. I don’t want to move back to Mexico; I’m in the perfect situation right now, exactly where I want to be. However, I want more Mexico in my life.

I’ve revisited my somewhat tenuous financial situation and think I can stretch it to include 2-4 months per year for the foreseeable (and, presumably healthy) future, exploring more of Mexico. And, I’m thinking it might be a natural (if a somewhat unlikely) third section of this Substack.

That’s where you come in. I’d love to have your opinion on this as a third major section of this Substack. Gratitude - Substack - Mexico. It will take several more months to complete the Substack Workbook so, at that point, Substack and Mexico might become alternating week posts. What do you think?

Thank you for your honest feedback.

And, please remember that I am still working on a Substack Workbook series to help Substack authors align all the Substack bells and whistles with a proven Reader Engagement process. If you’re going to be a Substack author, you might as well use it to achieve your own objectives.

Tomorrow a stand-alone, brief Strategy & Setup Worksheet will be released to help you work through a series of questions in order to articulate your specific objectives. Once you have those clarified, everything else becomes easier, including things like where to put your Demon Paywall.

It took me months to clarify my paywall to: posts are free;

Collated, curated, and organized printable formats are reserved for paid subscribers.

For instance: the section Substack Workbook contains 14 posts related to Reader Engagement Phase ENTER and are all free.

While the actual step-by-step Workbook is reserved for paid readers and is available through this post:

ENTER: The Substack Workbook for Reader Engagement

For me, this feels like a compromise I can live with … I want to help everyone succeed … but I also need to pay my bills. Hope it works for you.