Mama, I’m Going Home

What the actual fuck just happened in Canada? 

Quiet, peaceful days on my sailboat with my dog, soaking in the island’s tranquility. I’d been working on multiple business projects that truly excite me, feeling that deep sense of alignment. Honestly, I’d been blissfully happy, because this is the life I’d worked toward since I left Canada almost five years ago. I woke up smiling, listening to the birds, sometimes literally pinching myself because I couldn’t believe I’d made it this far.

But then, early in July, I felt something was off. Even before I saw that gut sinking message. Something was off with my mom. She wasn’t responding quickly, the way she usually did. Its was 8 days without any responces. I was about to make a welfare check with the police. Then out of nowhere, my brother, whom I hadn’t spoken to in over ten years, sent me a message from her account. (We had stopped talking a decade ago because I spent years trying to pull him out of his extreme gaming addiction, trying to cheer him up and show him what he was missing outside. It ended in a huge fight, and we never spoke again, until now.) I realized back then that I couldn’t waste my life trying to change someone who didn’t want to be changed. It was his journey, not mine. The same went for my mom, even though I always kept in touch with her while I was traveling. He said, ‘Mom’s been sleeping 20 hours a day’.  She was falling over. My little brother was very scared. Within a day, she was in the ICU via ambulance. Although I was so happy to hear my brother’s voice, it sounded so lost and desperate. 

We had a conference call with the doctors and they said she was retaining dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. Her lungs couldn’t exhale anymore, a result of a lifetime of smoking and now has COPD. Her body was toxic. Her systems were shutting down. They weren’t sure she would make it. They even told us they will have no choice but to give her morphine to let her pass peacfully. 

So I got on a plane.

Landing in Canada felt like stepping into grayscale. The silence hit first, not peace, but emptiness. Union Station was packed with people, all marching in straight lines, eyes down, no sound but footsteps and obligation. I could hear a pin drop two blocks away and not a single beat of music. No laughter, no street food smoke in the air, no dancing children, no one daring to jaywalk even when the streets were empty. I looked around and realized... this wasn’t culture, this was compliance. And I know people who thrive in that world, who work their 9-to-5, live for weekends and one week off a year, but it’s not for me. It never was. I didn’t leave Canada just to chase sunsets. I left to feel alive.

I went straight from the airport to her hospital bed. She could barely speak. Mostly unconscious. Tubes, wires, machines breathing for her. For the next two weeks, my brother and I visited her twice a day. 

During that time, I stayed at the apartment with him. The place was a time capsule. That’s also when I began cleaning the apartment, trying to bring some order back into their space.  It wasn’t just that it was cluttered; it was like the joy of life had quietly slipped away. They were just eating, sleeping, scrolling through Facebook and Netflix, and my brother was gaming, every day for the last ten years. That was their world. A total shock compared to my life, where I can swim with whale shark and giant sea turtles in clear turquoise waters.

I spent two weeks cleaning that apartment. Over 35 boxes of stuff that should’ve been thrown out years ago. There were toys my children used to play with when they visited, but my children are adults now. There were bins of knick-knacks that had no rhyme or reason. Peanut butter jars scrubbed clean and reused to hold two two pens. Over 200 reusable grocery bags scattered all over the apartment. I cleaned walls as far as my 5-foot-2-inch body could reach. The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned in years. I took hot water buckets to it, replaced the shower curtain. Blasting the music, crying in a way that felt cathartic, like scrubbing grief from the walls and my own heart at the same time, while my brother just played his online games...

It felt like a museum of moments covered in smoke damage. It’s a need to hold on to something? Maybe that’s why I became a minimalist. A lot of things started to make sense...

Glues
Lightbulb
Dead batteries
Thread
Cabinet bracket
Curtain hook
Headphones
Napkin
Flash cards
Safety pin
Plum sauce
Hairclip
Another napkin
Receipt
Bungie cord
“Maybe one day I’ll need it”

Every day I was there, I was grieving. Not just the physical decline of my mom, but the spiritual death that happens when people stop moving. Stop growing. Stop choosing life. And the guilt I felt was so confusing. Was I guilty for choosing better? For not being there? For not staying longer? For knowing I couldn’t fix it?

I was just... heartbroken. I see people live like this all the time, and I accept that it’s not my path. But this time, it wasn’t strangers. It was my family. And that made it so much harder. 

And somehow, even in all that, I felt grateful. Grateful for the contrast. Because who knows who I would have become if I didn’t have such a painfully clear example of a life I didn´t want. 

My mom finally did come home, and for a few days, we actually had something that felt like a family. I cooked healthy meals for them. I showed them things I’d learned and loved over the years, little joys, simple upgrades. I set my mom up with some fun radio game shows she could call into. We had our daily walks to the corner store, which doubled as her light exercise. I even created a system that made her recycling routine easier and more active.

I was on the phone non-stop getting her connected to government services, coordinating nurse visits, deliveries, follow-ups. I bought and personally delivered a new Lazy Boy recliner for her comfort. And for a moment, it felt like something had shifted. Like maybe—just maybe—it could be different.

But it didn’t last.

The real conversations started to surface. I tried to show them a better way, to wake up from the fog. I thanked her for all that she’d done (or not done) in life. I would not have left her home at 11 years old, I would not have looked for guidance elsewhere and pushed the boundaries. Thank you, Mama.

We had a falling out. They got defensive. They weren’t used to so much change. I had come in, cooked healthy meals, played music they hadn’t heard in years, smiled, danced, tried to cheer them up, and showed them pictures of my travels. But at some point, it became uncomfortable for them. They just wanted to retreat back to their habitual life, and there was nothing more I could do. I spent the next weeks reconnecting with friends and grounding myself after all that have happened.

Even when I tried to say goodbye, they wouldn’t let me stay one last night before I went back to Mexico. Even after everything I had done. The love, sweat, tears and money I have put in. I just told them, “OK, I love you, I thank you, and I hope we can talk again in the future. But if not, know that I love you both very much.” Forget it. Bye.

I set them up with as many services as I could before I left. I poured everything I could into that situation without sacrificing myself. In the end, I know I was a light for a moment, even if I couldn’t change the long-term outcome.

And I realized: this wasn’t just a goodbye to my mother. It was also a goodbye to my brother. And maybe even a goodbye to the version of me who still held out hope that I could fix them,  but you can´t help people that don’t want to change. You can love someone deeply and still walk away. 

They said I needed too much control. That I was changing too much, moving too fast. And maybe they’re right in some way, but I know what they really meant was: we’re not ready. Not ready to face the mess. Not ready to choose different. Maybe they never will be. And I’ve had to sit with that. Sit with the grief and the wondering if I failed. If I should’ve done more. If there was something else I missed.

And during those quiet moments, I’d find myself drifting into memory. Something they will never know or understand. I’d think about my life back in Mexico. About being barefoot in the sand, salt in my hair, watching the sun drop into the ocean like it does every night, without fail. About Sunday beach days and office beach clubs, dancing under Hidalgo string lights, the spontaneous friendships over tacos, the laughters, the turquoise water that feels like another planet. And I’d remember: I didn’t fail them. I simply chose not to follow them.

And I want to say this, clearly and without sugar-coating:

This cost me.

I spent nearly all of my savings to make this trip happen. Five weeks in Canada, living in that space, absorbing the weight of it. I rotated between a camper trailer, friends’ couches, and even a van (yes, vanlife again). I paid for hospital equipment out of pocket, a walker with brakes, a bathing chair, shower head and installation with support beams,  Organized a new CPAP machine. I arranged for oxygen. I set up everything I could so she wouldn’t fall again, so she could breathe, so she could ¨live¨. 

But I needed to see the full picture. I needed to stand in it and know, without question, that that life was never meant for me. I truly did all that I could.

Home is not where you were born or where your family is. Home is where you decide to fully live and breath.

My whole way to Canada, the song ¨Mama, I'm coming home¨ played in my head (RIP Ozzy). But at the end it was the opposite because that’s what this was. I was leaving my mothers home, the one I ran away from as a child. A turning point. A homecoming, not to the place I came from, but to the place I chose. My sailboat. My peace. My life. My home. I was going home now.

I had been living quite peacefully before all of this. And now that I’m back, I’m grateful, but I’m also tired. I need time to recharge. To rebuild my energy, my bank account, and my inner calm. But that’s the rollercoaster of life, isn’t it? As long as you stay connected to your heart compass, you’ll always come out proud. Fulfilled. Aligned.

Afterthought; 

You’ve heard the story of Icarus, right? The boy who flew too close to the sun, the wax on his wings melted, and he fell to his death. That’s the version we all know, the warning not to aim too high, not to be too bold, not to take up too much space.

But the real myth was different. His father, Daedalus, warned him not just against the sun, but also against flying too low. Because the sea’s mist and waves would drag him down just as surely.

Somewhere along the way, that part got erased. Convenient, isn’t it? Because it’s easier to keep people small when they believe the only danger is in rising too high, so they stay low, settle for less, and call it ¨safety¨.

And it’s not just people who live in cluttered apartments who fall into this trap. You can live a perfectly curated suburban life, with the mortgage, the car, the matching patio furniture, and still feel like you’re empty and sleepwalking. Still feel like you’ve followed all the rules and yet somehow missed the point.

I’m not saying everyone needs to live on a boat or bend the ¨rules¨. But I am saying you have to question the box you were put in. You have to ask who benefits from you staying small, silent, and safe.

The system wasn’t built for your freedom. It was built for your compliance. Public schools weren’t designed to spark creativity, they were built by factory owners who needed obedient workers. The plan was: do what you’re told, go to the placement office, get a job for 50 years, buy enough stuff that you’ll need a storage unit... and then die.

That programming still lingers. We’re sold fear in bulk. Fear of failure. Fear of being alone. Fear of stepping outside the tribe and getting banished. Social media has only made it worse, we trade our instincts for approval and our dreams for likes.

But fear, as ancient and protective as it is, isn’t always right.

In fact, the things we’re afraid of, starting something new, being seen, stepping out of line, are often the exact things we need to do. Not without fear, but with it. With trembling hands, but open eyes.

Over time, like any muscle, that kind of courage grows. You get stronger. Bolder. More at home in your own skin.

So let me leave you with this:

You are not here to stay low. You are not here to play small. You are not here to follow someone else’s script until the end.

You are here to choose. To rise. To listen to the inner pull that says: There’s more than this.

Not everyone gets out. But you can.

And when you do, you don’t just save yourself. You rewrite what’s possible.

Fly higher.

Go home.

Chanty xo