Rosa Linda Román (00:17): Hello and welcome to New Mexi-Castaways. I'm Rosa Linda Román, and I am in Riviera Beach Marina just left the Dawn Treader, our 45-foot sailing catamaran/home that I live on with three kids and a German shepherd, and my husband. I'm heading to the Fort Lauderdale airport to pick up our former nanny, Ms. Allie, who lived with us on the boat and sailed to The Bahamas with us for about a month. And so, she's coming in from a trip, and I just got back from a trip, and it's been a trip. Maybe I'll get a chance to talk with Allie here and do an interview with her on the way back, because it's a bit of a haul and it's almost midnight. Yeah, so I'm a little tired, but I'm going to talk with you guys to keep me awake. So, that's your job is to keep me awake right now. Rosa Linda Román (01:27): I actually am doing fine. I'm still on really West Coast Time. We were in, let me back up. So, we went, we got back from The Bahamas and I am sure I've done an episode since then, but we kind of hurried the last few days to get back so that my kids could make a flight to Chicago and they went to Chicago, and that's where they spent time with their cousins. So then, they were in Chicago for two weeks. I flew to Chicago, picked them up, and flew with them to Phoenix. In Phoenix we picked… we rendezvoused with Nathan. We met up with my husband and went from Phoenix and drove down to Mexico. And I'm trying to think if I've had time to record an episode since then. Rosa Linda Román (02:40): So, if this is a repeat, just ignore me. But basically, we went to Mexico to make sure that all of our… to try to figure out where our rental money is. We knew it was in a bank in Mexico, in a Mexican bank account. Well, we thought that, but we weren't a hundred percent confident because we didn't know how to access any of the money. So, because of that, I felt like, okay, I don't even know how to get into the account and because my husband doesn't speak Spanish, it's really his account, but I was trying to help, and I was confused and didn't know how. So, we went down to Mexico, which is where our condo is and we rented out, and we wanted to make sure all the money was in the account, which it was. We sat down at the bank, figured out that all the rental money that we had paid minus all the expenses that the, you know, the maintenance and things that cost us money to maintain the condo. Those were deducted. Rosa Linda Román (03:49): And so, the money was left. And it was very, a very nice surprise for me or pleasant relief, really, to see that the money was in the account as it was supposed to be. And it felt like my efforts were good for something. So, that was the Mexico trip. And then, once we were there, the kids and I were kind of like, well, we're so close to New Mexico, and also, Tucson where my brother-in-law lives, and some of our dear friends live. And so, we drove from Mexico to Tucson, and we got in there about this time, Tucson time, like 11 o'clock at night, and spent just one night there with my brother-in-law, and saw our former nanny, Miss Lydio, and her delightful daughter Eliana, and she's pregnant too. So, that was exciting. Rosa Linda Román (04:47): Okay. So, that was the kind of the Mexico Tucson whirlwind. And then, we drove to New Mexico. New Mexico was super fun. It was so strange for us to be back. It was great to see friends and it was great to remember that, you know, with friends that you really enjoy, it's like no time has passed. You just enjoy them. And so, we did that and we really crammed in a lot of friend time in a very little bit of time, which was pretty cool. Friends from early playgroups, all the way through my closest friends now as a grownup, not just with the kids, not just only about the kids, but also, friends of mine. And then, each of the kids wanted to spend time with their best friends and we pulled it off. Rosa Linda Román (05:47): Ahava got to see Clara, Ziva got to see Presley, and Samuel got to see Gavin and Dylan. And that was a major crew to pull a play date or friend time with all of their friends. And that's really kind of… and it was also the biggest challenge, or I don't know, the thing that is most thought-provoking for us is the fact that we went to our house and we had some really mixed feelings about it being there. And it's being rented by a friend of ours and he's taking good care of the house, but just being in the house without anyone… it's not really our house, you know, it's our house, but he's renting it. So, it does not feel like our home. I guess it's our house, but it doesn't feel like our home. Rosa Linda Román (06:40): And so, because of that it just felt awkward. I don't know. It also brought up a lot of feelings for me. You know, I have a lot of pressure at different times from different members of the family saying they want to give up on the boat thing and they want to move back to New Mexico. And I've always just written it off and said, "Nope, not interested. We're not…" Not that I'm blowing off their feelings, but I do feel that the benefit of what we're doing far outweighs what we gave up, what we've given up to do so. But you know, it's not without pressure, and stress, and worry. And you know, I second guess myself, and I worry that we're not doing the right thing like every parent, right? Everything we do, we worry that it's not the right thing. Rosa Linda Román (07:31): But going back to New Mexico made it harder. I feel like we were in a groove. We sailed to The Bahamas, spent four months there. We kind of started formulating our next plan. What are we going to do next? Where would we sail to now? And after we did that going back to New Mexico, there was kind of a shift like, wow, we really, you know, some of the kids like Ziva and Samuel really missed their friends. And that was the whole trip was, "Well, I don't want to leave. And I want to be here." Ziva, who before this trip seemed pretty satisfied with the boat life. I mean, maybe not, I mean, she's got a fiery temper and she struggles with, you know, getting upset, really, really angry sometimes, and I felt like we had made major progress together. Rosa Linda Román (08:43): And then, we went to New Mexico, and I feel like she now blames me for missing out on time with her friends. And she said she wanted to spend fifth grade in New Mexico. Well, she's at the end of fourth grade from homeschooling. So, that would mean she'd have to start like this upcoming school year back in New Mexico, which I don't really think that Nathan and I really don't want to do that. I mean, Nathan may, who knows, he's hard to pin down. I mean, you know, he's been traveling this whole time. So, a lot of the swirling thoughts have been really just in my mind or sharing the conversations with friends, but not really having a chance to talk to my partner about it because he worked so much and travels for work. So, I've been just trying to kind of process it all in my mind. Rosa Linda Román (09:43): I know when we're sailing and we connect with other boats with kids, it's really great for all of us. We meet new friends and we see new places. And also, I think, you know, the chance to learn how to handle those heavy emotions of having to say goodbye, or you know, just learning how to get along with lots of different kinds of people. But there's so many good things about that. But when we were in New Mexico and Ziva and Samuel… Samuel said he wasn't going to leave. The whole lead-up to our flying out, he kept saying, "We're going to miss our flight. We're going to miss our flight." And I'm like, "No, we're not, we're fine." And he said, "No, we are going to miss our flight, because I want us to miss our flight." And I was like, "Awesome." Rosa Linda Román (10:35): So, you know, I feel bad in that way, but I also feel like we've only just begun on the sailing adventure. And normally, I can kind of count on Ahava to be on my side, if you will, you know? Like, she'll do what, I mean, she likes the boat and she is excited about being on the boat, but she too is feeling conflicted after being in New Mexico. She came back and we were sitting at the dinner table tonight and she just started crying and she was very sad, you know, like, she wore her emotions on her sleeve today, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And that is not very usual for her. I mean, she's kind of howdy sometimes, but she doesn't necessarily get sad like that. She was so sad and I said, "What's going on?" Rosa Linda Román (11:35): And she said, "Well, there's only two things I don't like about the boat. And number one, it's how it's affected her gymnastics. And number two is not being able to see her friend Clara." And I said, "I totally understand." And it's been, you know, because she is a competitive gymnast, she's feeling very behind and like she can't catch up, and she doesn't know what she's going to do about that. She also has a lot of uncertainty because this is the year she's supposed to be preparing for her bat mitzvah. And we've yet to pin down a program or someone that will work with her to allow her to do that and to prepare for that. So, we have to kind of get on that a little bit more and push to actually come up with a solution sooner rather than later, because she wants to have her bat mitzvah in January. Rosa Linda Román (12:33): She had been studying in New Mexico before we left, but she's got to kind of catch up on a bunch of stuff. So, there's that. And yeah, she's a pre-teen so she's already got a lot going on emotionally anyway. So, all of these things are swirling around. I'm trying to figure out what the best move is for us, the plan. And so, when we went to New Mexico, and I'm in my house and you know, I'm thinking there's most… the nice thing about the boat, mostly, I look at the house now and I think I don't need any of this stuff because once you go through the KonMari process and downsize to live on a boat, you realize so much of what you thought was important isn't and you don't need all that stuff. And so, I looked in our garage which has shelves and shelves of things that belong to us that I was going to either sort later, or maybe holiday decorations, you know, things like that. Rosa Linda Román (13:36): And as I looked over it just at passing glance, really, I felt like I don't need any of this. So, that was kind of strange. But I'm also, I don't know what I want and that's where I'm struggling. I really struggle with this. And I think that I'm more of a person who likes to talk things out with others, and there's not a lot of others in my life that are grownups that I can talk to. This morning I had a great conversation with a neighboring boat, which Paul and Laura are on the catamaran behind us. And they are about to sail tomorrow heading to The Bahamas. And so, our plan, as everyone was asking, I went to New Mexico, "So, what are you going to do next? And I love following your adventures on Facebook." And they would ask, you know, what's the next plan? Rosa Linda Román (14:37): And our answer was, "We're going to head up the east coast of the United States. We're going to go, basically, to the source, to the hub of Nathan's work, where he's flying to all the time, not this time, because he's in New Mexico doing his clinicals." But like three weeks out of the month he flies up to the northeast to do some other work for the company that he works for. So, I said, "Why don't we go to that area?" And the kids, and I, you know, we can study American history right there at the source of it, right? And we can let Nathan be closer to his work. So, travel would be a little bit easier on him and on us, of course. So, that was the plan. That's what we told everyone, but then, Nathan and I talk on the phone, and granted it's at the end of exhausting day of clinicals or week of clinicals for him, and traveling solo with kids for me, and also, the emotional roller coaster of being back and seeing my closest friends, and missing them, and all that. Rosa Linda Román (15:48): And we say, well, why are we going north? Why don't we just go south, and you know, go with our friends, Paul and Laura, or go with… There's these other boats that we've seen congregating in the Eleuthera's in Rock Sound or some of the other places that we could get to pretty easily, and then, continue following them or doing a buddy boat system with them beyond, you know, continue on to Puerto Rico and the the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and beyond. So, that's very tempting. Now, hurricane season is fast approaching. So we have to have some plan at some point. The question is where do we really want to go? And you know, we want to do this and I don't want to necessarily… If we head up the east coast I worry that's just going to make it, like, if we don't enjoy it enough, if it's kind of mediocre, or too many people, or all the things. Rosa Linda Román (16:57): Like, right now we had some drama recently about our dog at the marina and, you know, being at a marina, and with the people, and all of the things that come with being in a city that's exhausting. And so, I'm a little nervous heading up the east coast to, you know, many places where there's going to be lots of people, and you know, concerns about safety, and burglaries and, you know, whatever. I don't even know. We honestly don't even have a beginning plan now that Nathan's coming back and we'll be back together. Hopefully, we can talk about some of these things and come up with a decent plan. Rosa Linda Román (17:36): But, you know, part of me wants to just keep going along the chain of islands and do this while we still can because as uncomfortable as it was for Ahava, in fact, she was so funny because all her friends, since she left they started middle school. She would have been starting middle school if we had stayed. And all her friends were at the middle school and we went to go pick up her best friend and she was just really strange about it. She was acting like she was nervous, and she would not go in the building. She had never been to the middle school other than to watch a sporting event, but we didn't tour the school like all the other kids did. And so it's like this bizarre, strange foreign place that she's nervous about. Rosa Linda Román (18:28): And I was laughing. I'm like, "So, you'll go to all these other islands where, you know, not a soul, and make friends instantly, but you won't walk into your middle school building with all your friends that you know." And she said, "Yes, that's right." So anyway, you know, it's been just interesting developments from this trip. It is nice to be back. Although being back on the boat, of course, always means you see all the things that you need to work on, all the projects. We have a major undertaking right now, which is t before we left, there were cockroaches on the boat. So, I think I'll save that one for another episode, but yeah, bugs and boats are not a good combination. Rosa Linda Román (19:17): So, the biggest thing that I feel, and part of it is just not having time to really think about it and process everything is I feel like if I don't push us to maybe make the big leap now, it might all come to an end before I really feel like I'd be gone. And the reason I feel that is the first time we lived on a boat which was in 2009 to 2010, we came back to Florida to reprovision and granted, we found out we were pregnant at that time. And so, we ended up moving back to New Mexico. And that was it. And it was a lot like this, because we had moved aboard that boat in September, and the boat was called Hakuna Matata and was a manta which I loved, but we were a smaller family and we're a bigger family now, and this is a bigger boat. Rosa Linda Román (20:28): Anyway, so on Hakuna Matata, we sailed up to the Abacos mostly. We did make it to Eleuthera, but only for a night, and then, turned around and went right back. But we were there for five months, at least. So, we had started in Florida, very similar, except we spent more time going south, like Miami and the Florida Keys. And we had another nanny on board, Miss Melissa, who we adore. And every time we have something coming up, I send her a note like, "Hey, I don't suppose you'd want to come and nanny for a little while." And she's always very busy. She's a marine biologist now, so way too busy for taking time off to do that. But we do miss her. So yeah, so the first time we moved down to the boat and we came back to Florida, it meant the end of our journey. And you know, it feels like it could be that again. There's so many temptations coming back to the U.S. I mean, everything's convenient and everything's, I mean, living on a boat isn't convenient, so it's all relatively convenient, but, you know, we enjoy seeing friends and family and that helps. And that hurts because if we're going to really go and I don't know, are we talking circumnavigation? Are we talking just, you know, going down the chain of the Caribbean islands, and maybe across from there, or you know, what are we talking about? Rosa Linda Román (22:07): We just don't know. I keep saying, I really would like to at least make it to Puerto Rico. And I really could see us being there for six months or so, so that my kids could have a connection to my family's Homeland. My dad is from there and still have dear, dear friends and not friends, well, some friends, but family, mostly on the island. So, we're actually talking about trying to do Ahava's bat mitzvah in Puerto Rico, which would be a very unique experience. But I'm not going to get into that unless it actually comes to pass because there's way too much up in the air still about that. Rosa Linda Román (22:50): But yeah, I mean, it's a place that other boats with kids at least from the online group that I belong to, it seems like there are several other kid boats that will be wintering in Puerto Rico. The nice thing is it's part of the U.S. so it has a lot of what my husband would need, have good Wi-Fi, it would have flights, easy flights in and out of San Juan. So, yeah, and, you know, just the chance that my kids could learn Spanish, and get to know my family more. I just think there's a lot to be said for trying to do that. And then, beyond that, there's many places we would like to explore. I mean, Nathan has done some business in St. Lucia and loved it. He just loved St. Lucia. Rosa Linda Román (23:46): And so, that's one possibility, you know, just so many possibilities. And the question is, do we go up the east coast, and take the chance, you know, that may end our journey, because what happens if he goes back to the hub of his work, and everybody loves him so much, he can't leave, or we start, you know, being in places where Ahava can start training again gymnastically, and then, she gets really good and ends up, you know, not wanting to leave. I mean, it's tough because I don't want to take away her dream, and I don't want to take away Nathan's dream. You know, he loves his work, but I've kind of put my dream on hold for a very long time. Rosa Linda Román (24:36): I mean, I was you know, I was a television news anchor, was my last job. And that was, I mean, my last outside the home, not independent job. Obviously, New Mexicast is a job if I look at it that way. But my last paid job, let's say, was in 2005, the beginning of 2005, or really the end of 2004 is when I left when I was in the end of my pregnancy with Ahava and she is now 12. So, you know, I've put things on hold for a very long time. And I know I sound like I'm just trying to justify my own selfishness, but I do feel like this is something that we really all do well with and are enjoying, except when we have FOMO. You know what FOMO is? The fear of missing out. I feel like we are loving what we're doing, except when we are kind of one foot into places. When we're worried about missing out Nathan might feel like he's missing out on, you know, climbing that corporate ladder where, you know, he's kind of becoming the big wig or Ziva's fear of missing out with that friendship. Obviously, she misses her friends and same thing with the Ahava. Rosa Linda Román (25:53): And Samuel's just Samuel . He just wants to be in New Mexico and when we were in New Mexico he didn't seem to think he liked New Mexico. So, who knows? I mean, you know, I try to not take too much to heart because I know when I was a kid, and we moved, and I was heartbroken that we were leaving Illinois because my dad worked for Eastern Airlines, and he was transferred to Miami when I was about Ahava's age, a little bit between my two girls ages. So, I was 11. And we went and I was kicking and screaming. I was very stressed about moving. It was the best thing that ever happened to me having that change of perspective, and change of location, and a new start. I feel like that's where I blossomed and I feel like the kids for all that we're giving up, we are gaining so much more. Rosa Linda Román (26:58): Now, one of the areas that I'm really struggling with, or I have been struggling with is the schooling, homeschooling. I really feel like I just don't have a handle on that. And I don't like that feeling. And my husband doesn't really care as much about it as I do, because he feels like the kids are learning along the way, and they're going to pick up what they need to pick up. And it's true to a certain degree, but I feel like I just am happier when we have something of a structure of some kind, because his work changes so much. I mean, he comes, and goes and, you know, and you never know when he's going to be able to be with us. And so, that's so malleable and changing, and then, day to day the schooling is changing and the location is changing and I like change, but I'm thinking I'm going to start trying to create more of a schedule when it comes to the learning, the schooling, and maybe instead of just having kind of a wide variety of learning materials to have more of a structured curriculum. Rosa Linda Román (28:12): So, those are the things swirling around in my head right now. I really want to put together some episodes where I share some more details about the places that we've gone and what we're doing along the way. But it seems like when I finally get the chance to talk with you guys the thing that I need to do, I want to do is just kind to talk and share my thoughts. I do like the thought of getting more interviews. So, I think when I am in the car with Allie on the drive back I'll do a debriefing interview and ask her about her experience on the Dawn Treader. So, we'll see how that goes. All right, that's it. What am I going to say? I'll just wrap it up and thank you for listening. If you liked this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can even show them on their phone how to use a podcast player like iTunes, or what other set? There's Podcasts, it's iTunes version, and there's Stitcher, which is how I listened to my podcasts. So, yeah. Please share it with a friend, leave a review if you like it, or send me a note, rlr@newmexicast.com. Rosa Linda Román (29:34): Well, a little afterthoughts to add to this episode. I got to the Fort Lauderdale Airport and I'm like, why isn't Allie texting me? I had told her when I was in wherever I was, New Mexico, that why don't you leave my car at the airport in Fort Lauderdale? Because then I'll fly in and I'll drive the car home that way, because she was flying out. And then, she would have a ride to the airport and I said, "And then, I'll pick you up when you return." And she said, "That would be great." So, apparently, she arranged another ride because I called her and I said, "Hey." I said, "Did you already land?" And she said, "Hey." And she sounded horrible, and tired, and sleeping. I said, "Are you sleeping? How are you sleeping?" Rosa Linda Román (30:35): And she said, "I just got home, I'm just sick, I'm home." I'm like, "Oh my gosh! What do you mean you're home? I'm picking you up. I'm at the airport." This is the life of someone who is on the go too much. And I know she's too busy too. So, apparently, we had a major miscommunication and now I'm driving home from Fort Lauderdale by myself without the interview with Allie. So, sorry I got your hopes up. Maybe I'll have to pin her down to sit down with me another time. Anyway, I hope you guys find ways to laugh that whatever drama you have in your life and fair winds and following seas, as they say. Take care, bye