One year ago today at this hour, I was on pins and needles, ten hours away from taking off in an airplane on my way to Costa Rica for the very first time in my life.

Although I had researched the country six ways from Sunday, it was still an “adventure into the scarcely known” — something no one ever recommends doing without first visiting a nation several times and staying a while before deciding to move there lock, stock and barrel.

But I was fleeing a regime in real time. I didn’t have the luxury (or, frankly, the savings balance) to be dipping my toe into a new life.

And I figured that if I ended up disappointed, I could fly somewhere else in the region and set up a home there.

“Nothing is set in stone yet” was my “out” clause!

On this morning one year ago,

I was agonizing over only one thing:  I would be leaving my best friend Lisa Twining in the U.S.!  (Other friends, too, but I saw them so infrequently that the pain of leaving them wasn’t the same.)  Most close friends said they’d fly down and visit. And they will.  They just haven’t yet.

Only Lisa has. And the nine days flew by. And we cried more when she left here than we cried when she left me at the airport in Seattle. Because by the time we reconnected here in Costa Rica we had experienced for five months what living without each other’s frequent presence truly felt like!

WhatsApp and video chats can only do so much

I thank technology for these amazing apps. But they can’t put you in the same room, or car, or bus with each other so you’re rubbing shoulders, laughing your asses off, and truly connecting in real time with nothing else on your mind.

So, one year later…

What do I miss about the United States? 

Not a damn thing.

Oh, I miss what I was taught (in an intentionally misleading, whitewashed manner!) about the history and trajectory of the United States.

You know the litany: nation of immigrants/melting pot, liberty and justice for all, land of the free, diversity, equity, inclusion, etc.

I love the idea and ideals of the United States. But Costa Rica embodies them better than the U.S. ever did, so I’m extremely happy, relaxed and satisfied here.

I don’t miss the chaos, strife or meanness of spirit that has pervaded U.S. culture ever since Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh started the ball rolling.  Sadly, that same spirit continues to spread beyond U.S. borders, making the entire world less safe and serene than it would otherwise be. Every nation is on pins and needles now as decades’ long alliances crumble and the world becomes more tinderbox-like that at any other time in my lifetime.

But today, I am going to set all that aside to count my blessings, congratulate myself on the insight to recognize the threat to my existence well enough in advance, and the courage (that I see now, in retrospect) that it took to get outta Dodge when I did.

I also want to thank all those who helped me get here

— my immigration coaches Margaret Aliff and Jon Graham Mitchell, my BFF Lisa (for encouraging me to go even though she wanted me to stay, recognizing the peril I was in in T-Wreck’s America), the people who donated to my GoFundMe campaign, the LGBTQIA+ tribe that welcomed me with open arms when I got here, and the countless ticos who took me under their wings every time I looked confused, frightened, or at wit’s end, standing on some street in Grecia wondering where to find a particular store, item, or correct bus!

It takes a village, and the village I found here in Costa Rica has been a welcoming home every minute of every day.

I am one blessed individual.

Photo by Jon Graham Mitchell