As I write this we are 4 months and 22 days away from our move to Costa Rica and the cold grip of winter has settled into the Utah Mountains. Life at 7,000 feet is tough in these mountains and even more so when you have the medical conditions that we both have.
We continue to have questions from a lot of people as to why we would move away from a house we have spent 8 years remodeling, away from Family and into a culture so radically different.
Most people do not realize how we are now living our lives for almost 6 months of the year that the cold is settled in. If we were to stay put where we are, every year we would spend those 6 months sitting on the couch unable to enjoy some of the basic things in life. The levels of pain we are both in during the winter would make most people cry and often makes us cry. We are unable to take pain killers due to the negative side effects upon both of us. Our Doctors are amazed at how we can get along without the pain killers and sometimes we just have to break down and take them anyways.
Just today I had 4 people at work that saw me walking around during my trips around the building when I had to get up from the chair. Each commented that I must be in a lot of pain and wanted to know if I had been in an accident. In fact it was just the weather of another winter storm descending upon us.
When it warms up each year we improve greatly, but are still affected each time a storm comes through. We spend our summers trying to catch up with the things we could not do during the winter, falling further behind each year. This year we still have a ton of work to do and will never get it done.
Our beloved greenhouse has sat mostly unused for the last two years when we could not put the effort into it until later each year. We finally sold it after we decided to move south as we realized we would not be able to use it anymore even before we left. We are very happy that the family that bought it have very similar ideas to us about living sustainably.
We realized early on, when looking at options that we would be unable to at this point move to St George Utah or Arizona for a climate that would better suit us at this time. It is 5 years before I reach retirement age. However we have my Navy Retirement and VA Disability pay that I receive now. It became quite clear that the only way we could afford to live between now and full retirement was to relocate to Central and South America.
Then we discovered House Sitting, by house sitting we can reduce our living expenses even more. We can move around to different areas and countries. We were amazed at how our first house sit came together like it was meant to be.
The most positive thing going for us there is that the stable weather patterns and overall climate in Central America will mean an end to the pain we suffer each winter and we can live a fulfilling life. We will have the chance to truly enjoy each other’s company rather than just occupy space next to each other on the couch each winter.
We plan to spend 5 years moving around and exploring a part of the world that is very different from where we have lived before. We know that our relocation will allow us to have a life together once again. We do not need things like a house we own, more importantly we have each other and the memories we will be creating together.
Pura Vida!