In absolute boredom, I took a quiz on Facebook: What is your inner nationality? It came up as German. I thought surely after I answered the question of how many kids do I want as "1, if any," I would get the result of Chinese. Yet, the description seemed fairly apt - not smiling unless I really mean it, wanting to live on an island away from everything currently around me, etc . . . Although the quiz is absolutely ridiculous, it reinforces something I've already been thinking about for a really long time: I don't want to live here.
When I used to have an online journal (an amount of years ago that I don't want to admit), one thing I wrote about a lot was wanting my dual citizenship with Costa Rica. A long time ago, I spent my summers there, working "under the table" as a poolside bartender for my room and board. I fell in love with the country and thought it to be vastly superior to my own. Ironically, my father and stepmother recently sold their house and moved there, inciting near-insane jealousy.
My latest dream has been moving to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. I actually thought that it was a shared dream with my husband. We have talked about it for months. Since I work online, my job can follow me anywhere, and it would be more than enough for us to live on. He said he could cash in his retirement, giving him enough to invest in a boat, so he could charter ocean fishing trips. Since Puerto Escondido is a budding tourist community, we would have had the opportunity to get in on the ground level. We have been planning to move in December, but when I mentioned it today, he fell silent. It is clear now that he does not have any real intention of going. Although I can understand his reticence to leave family and memories behind for an uncertain future in a foreign land, I can't help but be disappointed.
The point is: what is it about me that makes me want to live so far away from where I am? Am I running away from bad memories, suffering from a case of "the grass is greener on the other side," or do I really just not belong?
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I'll comment on my own post . . . I share a lot of things with my dad. He was always described as having "pipe dreams." We only have a short time on this earth, and the only way people do something extraordinary is by doing something against the norm. It is a risk, but you gain nothing by risking nothing.
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