Living in Central America for 8 Weeks: A Confession (Part I)

Dwight and I have been living in Central America for eight weeks. We spent four weeks in Costa Rica and four weeks in Panamá. This series isn’t about the touristy stuff. If you want to read about that, then head over to our collaborative blog Garlands Abroad.

This series is about my personal feelings, what I learned, and what was reinforced about myself and my existence in this world.

Let’s start with a confession/not confession.

Dwight and I had been planning a long stay in another country since we thought you-know-who was going to be president. It started with a casual conversation centered on what we’d do if he-who-shall-not-be-named won. People had begun having dangerous conversations in the States, and we live in the South where racism and other thoughts consist of more than media sound bites and empty threats. Dwight suggested buying a gun; I suggested leaving the country. We planned for the latter.

As you know, Biden won but we still decided we wanted to leave. We’re both free-spirited in that way and didn’t see it as a big deal. The only issue was the limited places that would allow US citizens to enter. Initially, we decided on Croatia, but long story short, we ended up with Costa Rica and Panamá.

My husband and I are different, so we handled leaving differently: He told his job he wouldn’t be in the country. I didn’t. I’m more of an ask for forgiveness type of person combined with a who cares mentality. I kept thinking, who cares if I’m sitting in my home office in Jacksonville or sitting in an Airbnb miles away, as long as I’m doing my job effectively, which I did, by the way. I had a student win second place in a research undergraduate conference, I successfully wrapped up Spring semester, and I began and almost completed Summer semester.

This doesn’t mean I didn’t tell anyone.

I contacted close friends and family, whom I assumed would want to know where I was. A handful of people knew this was a planned trip; others found out the morning we were leaving the country. I did it this way for two reasons. First, I didn’t want to hear anyone’s comments about our plans. I’ve learned that others’ opinions do sometimes affect me, depending on who it is. I get angry very quickly when people think they can offer unsolicited advice and tell me things I didn’t ask to hear, instead of just wishing me well or asking details. I don’t like being angry, so I’ve learned to do what I want and either tell people while I’m in process or after the fact. The second reason is because we had a failed Croatia trip, and I didn’t want to make approximately twenty-five calls and texts explaining to approximately twenty-five people what happened should this next trip not manifest.

Even though I went through all these changes, I’m still not a great secret-keeper, and I have an affinity for IG. To satisfy these two truths, I only posted about my trip to stories for the first three weeks. I saved feed posts for regular stuff, like info about my student and some beautiful Mother’s Day flowers I received. While my former director and a co-worker did see these stories, neither said a word.

Once Spring semester ended, I posted regularly.

Whew! There’s my confession/not confession. The next five posts will dig deeper into a few things I’ve learned while I was away.