“It’s brave what you’re doing,” friends also say.
That’s kind, but I don’t feel brave. What I do feel is wildly lucky to be able to leave a country whose actions disgust me, weirdly fortunate my aforementioned then-wife opened the door to all this when she declared our moribund marriage officially dead. Weeks later, we sold our house at market’s peak. My half of the ridiculously high proceeds allowed me to buy property in Costa Rica, where I obtained legal residency with ease and had a house built, not with ease (a long story, but it’s in the book; actually, it is the book).
I also don’t feel courageous because, rather than retiring outright as I’d originally planned, I instead took a one-year leave of absence from work, providing a) me with more options (including retiring anyway in twelve months) and b) America with enough time for its next appointed president, after the end of the current quadrennial dogma-and-phony show, to heroically rescue the Constitution from being totally annihilated by the country’s democracy-hating corporate masters. (It’s possible “b” is a tad overly optimistic.)
So, brave? Hardly. I caught some breaks, made a decision and carried it through.
Costa Rica has its problems, for sure. But what it doesn’t have is a military, nor has it had for almost six decades. The effect on Costa Ricans of long foregoing an army to free up funds for other things, like health care and education, is palpable.
Critics assert Costa Rica might wish to prioritize other items, like, say, infrastructure upkeep. Potholes, some capable of swallowing cars whole, are ubiquitous and could arguably be the national symbol.
I see it differently. A government unable or unwilling to make even basic repairs is also less likely to be concerned with tracking my every move, one reason I feel noticeably freer in Costa Rica than I do in the States. I relish being allowed to just be, a sense of liberty I’ve not experienced in America for far too long.
For me, then, I can’t not go.
But that still doesn’t make it easy.
Copyright © 2008 Mark Drolette. All rights reserved.
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