Margarita Wednesdays: Making a New Life by the Mexican Sea by Deborah Rodriguez

divers and the museums and the art galleries, and their trek down a charming street called Carnaval, which led straight to the shopping at Plazuela Machado, I regretted my decision. Especially because I didn’t catch one fish. But Carnaval Street? A place with a name like that was a place I had to see. I vowed to do some research when I got home.
    M Y YEAR OF SITTING HAD come to an end. I didn’t really feel all that different, although I did notice that I wasn’t crying quite as much, at least no longer every day. I continued to constantly get lost, but it didn’t mean I had to pull over to the side of the road in a state of panic each time. But inside, the pain and confusion were churning around together in a nasty dance, flinging out doubts that were multiplying like rabbits, each one a reminder of how much of a failure I was. I had failed at relationships and marriages, and somehow, even though I had been forced to leave Kabul, I felt like I had failed big-time at the one thing I was most proud of—the beauty school. And now I was failing at the slightest attempt at a normal life. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Somewhere between Kabul and California, I had lost my way.
    The thing was, life on the mountain with Mike was safe and secure. For the first time in my adult life, I was being taken care of. And for a free-spirited woman heading toward fifty, who hadn’t done a lick of planning for her future, that was huge.Plenty of women would have killed for what I had. So why was it so hard for me? Half of me, racked with guilt over not appreciating what I had, still yearned for the ability to adjust to life on the mountain. The other half just wanted to run away.
    A BOUT A MONTH AFTER M IKE and I returned to Napa, I found a little house in Mexico. It seemed to just happen, sort of. The truth wasthat, as was my habit whenever I traveled anywhere, I had turned every stop on the cruise into a game of “could I live here?” You name it, I’ve fantasized it. Iceland? Too much fish. Japan? I felt too big. India? Made me crave a Whopper. On this trip, the first two ports of call, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta, were immediately crossed off the list, both being a bit too touristy for my taste. But I just couldn’t seem to get Mexico out of my head. I wanted to own a house. And once I started looking into the possibility of Mazatlán, I couldn’t stop. It seemed to tick all my boxes. Proximity to the ocean? Check. Plenty of English speakers? Check. Culture and history? Check. Sam’s Club and Walmart? Check. I booked a flight to return for four days, to see for myself what this town was all about, and within twenty-four hours, I was hooked.
    The ride in from the airport was a major disappointment—dry, barren, dirty, and covered in graffiti. At first Mazatlán felt like a huge prank that had been played on me. I began to seriously doubt my instincts, and started to seriously regret spending the money on the flight. But when the taxi turned down into Olas Altas, and deeper into the Centro Histórico, I almost gasped. It was France and Germany and Spain and New Orleans all rolled into one, with a beach!
    Roger the Realtor had four houses on his list for the next morning. And guess where the first one, and the best one, was? On Carnaval Street.
    In retrospect I can see the natural progression of things, from my garage closet to my backyard shipping container to my tiny bungalow in Mazatlán. I’d always kept an escape hatch, a place to call my own, even if it was just a closet. Having a house had always been important to me. I was just twenty-one when I rescued an old house slated for a tear-down, moved it onto some property my dad gave me, and never looked back. The real estate bug must have been in my genes, as it followed me throughout my life—I always managed to own my own home, even when I was earning the lowest of low salaries. The last house I owned, before I went to Afghanistan, now belonged to one ofmy