January 11, 2001 – Providenciales, Turks & Caicos

Ben and I eloped to Turks and Caicos at the beginning of 2001, and were married by a local officiant in front of our resort’s wedding planner, a Moroccan waiter, a small crowd of bored sunbathers, and a dive boat that unloaded on the dock while we were vowing to stick together through thick and thin. I vividly remember when the reverend started the service by saying, “We are gathered here today to witness the union of Michael and Kimberly…” Me: “No, that’s not us.” He flipped over a little bookmark with the names on it and started again. “We are gathered here today to witness the union of Frank and Maria…” Me: “Nope.” He got it on the 3^rd try.

Maybe I should have been concerned when our official marriage certificate did not arrive in the mail as promised, 6-8 weeks after the wedding, but time passed and I sort of forgot about it. Nobody ever asked for it…I didn’t change my name, and the IRS didn’t require any proof for us to file our taxes jointly, so eventually it fell off my list.

During my exhaustive research about how to prepare for a temporary resident visa application, I saw mention of needing a marriage certificate and I did my best to get it. I emailed and called over and over, to probably a dozen different people. I tried the registrar of course, but I also contacted random officiants, wedding planners, lawyers, the tourism board…anyone I could think of. None of them would really give me the time of day. Eventually it was time for our visa interview and I still didn’t have the marriage certificate, so Ben and I applied for our visas separately and the marriage certificate fell off the list again.

About a month later I got a letter from my company saying that they were doing a health care dependent audit, which means that every employee using the corporate health insurance has to prove that each person receiving health care benefits is a legal dependent. With the kids it was easy – just upload a copy of their birth certificate. But for Ben I had to upload our tax return AND MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE. The universe was obviously telling me to get my act together and have that document on hand…what if something happened to one of us and the other had to prove that we were the heir to the estate?

I started my calls and emails with renewed vigor – my contacts were all still on Island Time. Then I spoke to a really helpful notary/apostille guy in Quincy Mass (Jim Murphy), and he said, “Maybe you guys are not actually married.” Oh dear. I called our town clerk to find out whether we could get married again…we were getting down to the wire because we only had a couple weeks before I was due to leave and the deadline for the health care audit was a week after that. After checking with the state, the town clerk told me that I would have to provide a “negative statement” – a government document certifying that we were not married between 2001 and 2015. Considering how difficult it has been to prove we ARE married, it seemed almost impossible to prove that we are not.  The volunteers for the position of ring bearer and flower girl were disappointed, but getting married again was not feasible within our time frame.

Finally, I called a lawyer in Turks and Caicos, and for $540 (!) she said she could get the certificate. At this point, the options were to pay the ransom or have Ben get kicked off of my health insurance, so I agreed to pay on delivery. Over a 2-week period she applied for the certificate but the person who searches the archives was away. Then she said it had been located but the person who certifies the documents was out sick. Then the lawyer left on vacation. Yesterday I received a scanned copy by email, and I can’t even think of words to express the feeling of relief after such a frustrating process.  It was a nail-biter, especially because I didn’t want my company to think I was a deadbeat who had a non-qualified dependent on my insurance.

Photo by Marc Jobin, official will-signing witness and photographer.

In other news of legal documentation, we signed our wills this week. We’re not planning to die in Mexico, but it felt like an important loose end to tie up. We met with a lawyer, Carolyn Spring, over a year ago, but there were a couple of issues we couldn’t agree on. Luckily Carolyn didn’t give up on us and had her notes from our meeting. We still don’t agree on the issues, but we came to an acceptable compromise. The first was that I want to be cremated and it’s against Ben’s religion, so my will states that if he dies first I will be cremated and if I die first he can decide. I don’t care that much, because I’ll be gone. I just don’t really want my body taking up space on Earth. The second issue was who to leave our estate to if our entire immediate family dies at the same time. We finally narrowed it down to a short list of 15 family members who will divide our assets and will each end up with enough money to take a vacation or buy new living room furniture. If you’re local and you need help with your estate planning, Carolyn was great to work with and reasonably-priced.

3 more wake-ups in the ‘Ham and one in Nashville!

I feel the need to share, because I am so truly touched and grateful for this moment.

Some people probably think I’m an over-planner, that I am too detailed…a perfectionist even. If this paints a picture of a super-analytical worry-wart, that’s not me. I can embrace the spontaneous, appreciate the unexpected, and seek out the unfamiliar. But I do get a certain sense of comfort from knowing what to expect and being as prepared as possible.

Last summer when I was attempting to move 19 people around Morocco without losing anyone, there was an 11-page description of our daily plans that I reviewed with my fellow travelers. I didn’t pre-plan every second or make a bathroom schedule, but with so much to fit into the trip and such an unwieldy group, I had to think about how we would get from Point A to Point B, who was sleeping with who, and when a guide would show up to lead our merry band through the streets of Marrakesh or Fez. Because all of the “big stuff” was pre-planned, that left us with the less critical missions like procuring wine, negotiating fees for camel rides, and shopping for treasures.

I have done a lot of planning for our trip to Mexico. While it would be more romantic and fancy-free to jump on a plane with a backpack and let serendipity guide me, it’s not an option I’m comfortable with when I have 3 kids and 2 pets in tow. The process of learning, preparing, and overcoming each obstacle has been an important part of the experience. At the beginning, thinking about obtaining visas, dealing with pet paperwork, finding a place to live and a school, dealing with finances…it was a lot.

We’re leaving one week from today, and at this point we’ve gotten through most of the planning and just have a few more preparations to complete. One of the loose ends that was on my worry-list was the key to our rental house. Our property manager will be out of town when we arrive, so getting into the house when we hit SMA sometime after midnight involves all of the stars and planets aligning with the row of ducks. The property manager is supposed to drop off a key with our friends’ (Friends #1) housekeeper before she leaves on vacation (What if she forgets? What if the housekeeper is not home when she stops by?). The housekeeper will then give the key to other friends (Friends #2) who are arriving the same day as we are and renting the house of Friends #1 (What if they miss their plane?). When we arrive in town, our driver will then stop at our friends’ house and I will get our key from Friends #2 who have pledged to stay awake until we arrive (What if they doze off or get sick of waiting for us?).

In my daydream about our arrival, we get off the plane in Mexico City and receive a text message that there is a problem – Friends #2 either did not make it to Mexico or do not have the key. That gives me the 3 1/2-hour drive to try to figure out where we can sleep. The dog and cat complicate the arrangements, so I imagine the driver leaving us in front of our house – picture me with 3 kids, a dog, a cat, 8 big duffle bags, 4 rollie carry-ons, 4 personal items, and a stack of pesos stuffed down my pants, on a street in Mexico from 1 a.m. until someone arrives to help. In the best version of the dream, the driver lets us sleep overnight in the van, but I haven’t worked out where we would pee.

This morning, Friends #1 emailed me to say that they want to mail us a key to their house as a back-up plan in case Friends #2 do not arrive in SMA on the 30^th or something else happens. I swear – I cried. I don’t think I was obsessing over the key issue, but it was in the back of my mind, and for someone to think about us and go to the effort of mailing us a key – I was so touched. When something starts to bug me and I hear my inner voice ramping up, I keep telling myself that everything will be fine and usually I even believe it for a while. This act of generosity reminds me that things will work out, we are not alone, and the universe is on our side.

We’ve been talking about our upcoming trip for so long I’m sure there are people who see me around town and think, “You’re still here???” Plan A was to arrive in Mexico on August 1^st, but when we found our house and the lease began on July 1^st, we tried to switch to Plan B and go earlier. Because of a last-minute work trip we ended up back with Plan A except arriving on July 30^th. The last month or so has been a series of get-togethers and “last times,” which will continue for the next 18 days – the last trip to Mad Willies for ice cream, last day spent in my office, last touch-up painting to be done, last night sitting around the patio table with friends.

All of this build-up was starting to get to me…not the actual events but the pressure to get everything done, get the tasks checked off the list, and the idea that this is the last time I’ll see someone or be somewhere. It’s really not the last time. It’s just a break, and the clock has already started ticking on our lease so by the time we leave we will likely only be gone for 11 months. Still a long time, yes, but once I started telling myself that we’re preparing for a long vacation (little white lie to self), it didn’t seem so overwhelming.

We’ve made more progress in the last couple of weeks. I think I’ve got the finances in order…I opened a second bank account as a back-up and got a credit card that doesn’t charge international fees. I finished a couple of work projects and spent most of this week with our apprentices, so the next two weeks will be more flexible work-wise. Ben has been working hard to get the yard in order, and is going through the process to take a leave of absence from work. He will be staying in the ‘Ham for a little while after the rest of us go, so knowing that I can leave a honey-do list is a big help.

One big relief has been resolving our prescription situation. There are 5 prescriptions that are critical for us to have – especially Norah who has to take thyroid medicine every day because of her thyroidectomy. There is a mail service that will deliver prescriptions to us, but I need to have at least a few months’ supply on hand to feel comfortable. I had a chat with the pharmacist and found out that I’ve basically been paying full price for our prescriptions anyway, because our health care plan changed and we haven’t reached our deductible yet. So if I paid $16 for a 2-month prescription I was thinking that the insurance was saving me big bucks, but $16 was the actual cost. I can buy as much medication as I want to take with me and the only difference is that I’m paying for it sooner. In a funny coincidence, I “met” (via email) a mom who is moving from San Miguel de Allende to Fort Worth for a year so her kids can have the experience of living in the US, and she gave me the name of a doctor who can do our lab work and make sure the dosage is correct while we’re there. I feel like we’re well set for health care.

This week we’ll finish getting the house in order, do some more purging, and we also need to update our wills and other legal paperwork. That’s one great thing about this process…all of the stuff that has been put off for years finally has an end-date. I think we’ve finished most of the last-minute shopping, and next week we’ll squeeze everything into 8 big bags, 4 carry-ons, and 4 personal items. After filling one entire bag with Aliya’s winter wardrobe, I’m hoping we have enough room for it all. Knowing that Ben is coming later, and that we’ll have other visitors throughout the year takes the pressure off a bit.

Here are some photos from our recent family gatherings…

Duende’s Birthday!

BBQ at Uncle Brady & Auntie Monica’s…

Water balloons…