We are home again, back at my desk next to my bed wearing my sheets (the bed, not me). So happy to be in my house with my stuff. Overlooking my valley. Through my razor wire. Which seems to have lost its lustre. Sigh.
I have to tell you: I came back a tad confused. That’s how good a time I had in Key West. The bouncer is me: here? There? WHERE? In limbo which is not a happy place.
Like when I first stopped drinking, there was a period of time where I wasn’t really "in" with my new buddies who didn’t drink, yet I no longer felt comfortable with my old buddies who still did. It was a lonely, scary time. Like when you first become parents. You have to make friends with people who are also parents because your old friends who don’t have kids have no idea what the heck you are talking about.
Like the summer after my first year in college, I had a mini-nervous breakdown. My summer of madness. College was a huge culture shock to me. You’ve heard it before: from tiny town in KY to Indian guys in dresses, Jews, Catholics, virgins, people from Boston who talked funny, people all manner of color and eye shape and accent. Turned me upside down. It was exciting and dramatic to have this world unfold before me, like being turned loose in Disneyland with free tickets and all the strange and exotic characters were my friends. Then I went home for the summer and a strangeness took hold.
Plopped right back into my old Kentucky home exactly as I’d left it, everything seemed different, out of reach. I couldn’t connect to the people I’d connected to all my life – they had changed. Like we no longer spoke the same language. Suddenly, I was isolated from the people and situations I’d known all my life. Right next to them but out of reach.
That scared the very breath out of me. Within a month of being home, I was having five and six panic attacks a day. I was afraid I was going stark raving mad and was powerless to stop it. I stopped eating, stopped drinking, melted down to almost nothing (madness is very thinning.) And all I could think about was getting back to Disneyland. To real life.
As obvious as it is to everyone now, it was years before I realized it was me who had changed. Everyone in KY was exactly the same; I was different. The panic attacks subsided just before going back to school. Part of it was being really sick of them. And I’d read a self-help book that suggested, when I felt an attack coming on, to touch my wall, touch my chair, name the physical pieces of my universe as I touched them. An amazing little trick that brought me right back down to earth.
Thank God I didn’t go to a therapist who would have put me on drugs. I’d probably still be on them today.
That’s what it was like going back this time: no panic attacks (too bad, I could stand to lose a few pounds) and I connected fine to my really close friends. But the whole scene felt different. I’m different. I bounce slower and at different stimuli. I was a professional Type A when we left Key West. I’m practically a B now. By the end of our three weeks there, I could feel the frenzy trying to worm its way back into my system. No thank you.
For now, I can’t talk about the pros and cons of here vs. there. Keeps me in limbo and I can’t live like that. It doesn’t matter anyway. We considered going back, but nah. We are here, this is home. Maybe not forever, but for 2008, Costa Rica gets to keep us. If I keep comparing, I’ll be really grumpy. There is at least as much to love about Costa Rica as there is about Key West. And we’ve only scratched the surface.
The world is in limbo right now. So much is changing: a new President, the housing market thing, a global correction, rampant inflation, a dollar in trouble… too much goin’ on, too much movin’ and shakin’ for me to be changing my life, too. We have a sane, comfortable space here on the planet. I think we’ll enjoy this for awhile longer, keep the world’s insanity at bay for a few more minutes.
You know, I would buy a property here: like five hectares (10 acres more or less). Raise goats and make goat cheese (don’t ask me how I, city girl, latched onto this idea.) It would be nice to spread out a little, grow herbs and tomatoes and chickens. Chickens for eggs. I don’t think I’m up to killing my own pot pie. Although who knows? I’ve done a ton of stuff in the last couple of years I didn’t think I was up to.
Welcome back lady. I know what you mean, A to B is for me too. I know that I have changed when I realize I don’t need to understand EVERYTHING in a conversation. I can sit and smile. Still, hard to settle in too much when you just aren’t sure. Living life in limbo is hard.
Talk to you soon,
Jen
Go for the little farm and get ducks! We got ducks last year and it’s been great getting our own eggs. The eggs taste the same (though it can vary depending on diet). They’re cuter than chickens too, and have really beautiful, expressive faces. We’re thnking of goats in CR too. Pretty much a whole menagerie.
Ok, ducks it is! Why not??? It would feel really good to be producing some of my own food. I bet I’d lose a LOT of weight.
Most people go home at this point. I am so glad you can see if for what it is and still enjoy your life here enough to stay. The two year mark is the tough one. Costa Rica does change you but I believe it’s for the good and those that stayed in the comfort zone, don’t really get it. They have no idea and I remember trying to relay all the intricacies of life in CR and they (my family) really wasn’t interested. They still couldn’t believe I would choose to live in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY over the U.S.A. I had changed and no longer bought into bigger is better, buy more, more, more. I saw everything in a different light.
I can relate so well to this post. When I went away my last year of high school to a “prep school”, I came home to my hick town and when someone asked was I home for good, I said “no, only for the holiday”. Holiday? No one talks like that back home and with their reaction, I knew I was growing beyond “the norm” I knew. I am so so happy to hear you can see through the urge to return to “normal”.
As far as the boys working here, CR will teach them to be entrepreneurs. The system is such that they have to have workers and manage their business. They could quite possibly have a better opportunity making a business here than they ever would back home. They just need a corporation to operate under and their dynamite mom to steer them in the right direction.
Happy you are ‘home’, Teri
The word “limbo” has a definite negative connotation. It sounds like you are tired of cogitating on the matter of whether to stay or leave and so, unresolved, you feel as if you are in limbo. It seems like a battle between a duel personality of a type A and a type B fighting for dominance. The bell ending round one rings, and you go to the corner to rest…in limbo.
But then I read that you may like what you have become while living in Costa Rica…a more relaxed person. You then deduce that the world is in limbo and perhaps now is not a good time to be making changes. And further, that you are daydreaming about a more rural life there, away from the city. Type B is getting the upper hand.
One thing I like about writing is that it has some attributes of meditation.It helps me slow down and take a look at myself almost as if from the outside. It helps me see where I might REALLY want to be heading. When you re-read your post above, don’t you get the impression that you might be happier in Costa Rica than you think you are? Maybe it’s just a matter of letting personality type A surrender officially to the tranquil beauty of the place you now call home.
Perhaps you are coming near the end of the big search of who you are. When you are comfortable in your own skin then life is an adventure no matter where you are and you do not need to question nor feel the need to identify with where you are because where you are is where you are. It all is a part of you.
Trish documented our duck experience on our blog. We’re going to miss our little quackers, especially since 2 of them have very distinct and obvious personalities.
I was also thinking along Teri’s lines for your boys. I’m sure they’ve got a nice font of ingenuity that needs to be tapped.
Did you read Erin’s post about getting acclimated? It was really touching and thought-provoking. (has she written anything that isn’t touching and/or thought-provoking?)
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… It’s funny to hear Key West energy described as a frenzy. I know what you mean only because we work in the same industry. You know that anyone from anywhere else would never think of Key West that way. The concept others have is that it is so laid back, which it is compared to other parts of Florida. In any case dear, I’m glad you had a great time with us and that we got your pulse rate up a bit again. 🙂 It’s always a triple chocolate double fudge whipped cream and a cherry treat when you visit.
Teri, so true how when you are in the states, there is “no other place in the world anyone could live”… my friends still look at me like I have two heads. Um, do I?
James, beautifully put. Thank you: that’s exactly it. I still feel the pull to the familiar, but it’s much less than it was. I am happier here, there is no question.
Laffingbear, you must have espn. I’ve been thinking that lately. Jeez, and only 52. I’d like that knowing to be part of me all the time. Never too late. Life is so funny. Not at all what I expected.
Hey Arp, I did read Erin’s post right after I got back. Really good, nice to have it outlined so neatly. Although the living of it is not so neat and tidy.
I’m definitely in stage 3 (Gradual Adjustment) but lapse for brief moments back into Irritation and Hostility, sometimes all the way back to Euphoria. I have seconds of Adaptation (stage 4)… I feel I’m almost there just because I’m sick of vacillating! Ready to think about other things. You have a grand adventure ahead of you!!
Mary, Mary, you know the frenzy all too well in our industry (real estate). Everybody wants everything right now, including us. I lost that edge here, no question. I’ve been able to dig it back out, but it’s not fun like it used to be. It’s work.
But there’s a U.S. frenzy, too. An energy: in the U.S. everyone is busy, busy, doing, doing. If not out in the car, home on the computer. There’s a frenzy to the doing and the shopping. You know: get money, buy stuff. You see that a little here, but just a tad. The fact that there is any of that here at all is unnerving!
Hanging out with you was great. The con leche shooter to my sundae. Love you, xoxoxo.
Yep, I watch espn sometimes. Thats funny. Have a good one.