EXPAT: Leaving the USA for Good

Greener Pastures?

“At your age, isn’t it about time that you stopped moving around from place to place, seeking greener pastures? Why can’t you just stay put and settle down somewhere … ?”

With words like these, I have been challenged by people I know – who assume they know me – about the nomadic quality that apparently defines my quixotic travels, seeking and reaping fullness in life.

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I came of age in New York City, graduating secondary school and then earning my Bachelor’s degree at a state university on Long Island. Excelling at Spanish, I worked at a veterinary hospital and in a supermarket to afford spending the summer following my high school graduation – and, later, much of my undergraduate studies – in Spain. Back in the States, I served (briefly) as an interpreter at the United Nations and then as a public school Spanish teacher. During those years, I earned a Master’s degree in Education and a Ph.D. in Business Communication. My salary no longer was earned by teaching Spanish, but by working as a college professor … a public relations specialist … and a writer/actor on several daytime soap operas. In between, I studied theology at a Northern Virginia seminary.

Later, I met my partner in life, with whom I have been blessed for more than 25 years now. We moved from my former residence to a charming townhouse nearby. As my earnings increased and investing in real estate beckoned as a road to financial security, we sold the townhouse and moved into larger quarters where we lived for several years, until we decided to downsize and move to an upscale townhouse—still in Manassas, Virginia. 2 The combination of 9/11 and watching too much HGTV convinced us to sell our Washington-area townhouse and take on a major renovation of an historic property in Mount Jackson, a town in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

As CEO of my company and a faculty member of the state university system – combined with the expansive possibilities of the Internet – “place” no longer was as important as “possibilities.” Professional potential took us from Virginia to Wisconsin … from Wisconsin to Jacksonville, Florida … from Jacksonville back to Staunton, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley … and then onto “retirement” in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. I continued to teach (online) and preach from a progressive pulpit.

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Fast forward digression … About ten years ago, we purchased a small “vacation bolt” in a typical town in southern Spain, where we’ve spent months each year enjoying a different way of life. Last year, we added a property in Portugal where we now live—about a six-hour drive, door-to-door, from our home in Spain.

On March 25, 2017, we departed our country of birth to live in another. We no longer reside in the USA, but divide our time now between our primary house in Portugal and our home-away-from-home in southern Spain.

Yet we still are citizens of the United States and care (cringe?) deeply about what's happening there.

And we have chosen — deliberately — not to be barraged day and night with all the atrocities, crimes, and conflicts of the Trump administration which had divided the country, estranged families, stolen from the people, alienated us from our allies, poisoned our environment, and brought us 3 time and again to the brink of unthinkable disasters and carnage.

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My heart continues to cry for the beloved country and I will express disgust and rage at those who purportedly represent us but actually profit and privilege from their perches.

No, I don’t regret the moves we made.

All things considered, our lives have been enriched by knowing people from all walks of life throughout the United States and around the world. Social media conveniently bring many together, enabling us to crosspollinate the people and places we’ve known over the past 50+ years: John Bowne High School classmates, SUNY Stony Brook alumni, and dearly beloved friends in Manassas, Mt. Jackson, Staunton, Racine, Jacksonville, Sturgeon Bay, Spain, and Portugal.

We now face challenges of a different sort here in Portugal, the world's third most peaceful country (following Iceland and New Zealand) and, reportedly, the friendliest one—especially to expats.

In essence, we must start from scratch – finding friends, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, hair cutters, food, and our way around – all in a language we don't yet speak or quite understand. We need to learn how to slow down, how to enjoy the simplest pleasures of life, and to trust that tomorrow will bring its own promises and priorities.

Thank you for taking part in our journey.

After all, it’s not the destination – but how we get there – that matters most.

Getting Going

“Get going, already,” motioned the young couple who had purchased our house in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and were waiting, eagerly, for us to depart from what was now to be their new home. In addition to our house, they had bought a good deal of our furniture –– as well as my favorite toy, an all-wheel drive Jaguar.

We had disposed of most of our possessions and keepsakes. Except for the contents of one 8 x 8 x 20 foot shipping container filled with an assortment of “household goods” and our beloved artwork, collected and curated together over 25+ years together (plus not too few U-Haul "wardrobe" boxes filled with blankets, comforters, bed linens, towels, and other household goods that we'd purchased for donation to the needy in Portugal— especially victims of the fires), everything else we owned, including Russ’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, had been sold, gifted to loved ones, or donated to nonprofit charities.

Turning back one last time to wave a final good-bye, I realized that we had divested much, if not most, of the content comprising our life in the United States, as we prepared to make the one-way journey to Portugal with our three dogs, three large suitcases, and two allotted carry-on bags containing computers, passports, and other essentials.

Over the past ten years, we had been fortunate and privileged to own “vacation bolts” in Spain and/or Portugal, and to travel there once or twice annually, enjoying a month to six weeks during each visit. But this time would be different. It wasn’t a visit. We’d be staying, not returning. One-way, not round-trip, tickets.

This was the first time we were traveling with our dogs, three miniature schnauzers, who’d accompany us in the cabin on the three flights taking us to our new home: Green Bay > Chicago, Chicago > Philadelphia, and 5 Philadelphia > Madrid (where we would rent a car large enough to transport our family and assorted paraphernalia on the four-hour drive to our property in Lousa, a tiny town on the outskirts of Castelo Branco, the nearest major metropolis to the Spanish border).

Endlessly, we had talked about living in Europe alongside other the expats – from the UK and the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Sweden and elsewhere – who had become part and parcel of our family and circle of friends in Spain and, later, in Portugal.

But they were European Union nationals.

Different rules applied to them than applied to us. Even the Brits, though fearful of potential consequences their “Brexit” might cause, were convinced they would never be forced to leave the countries to which they had emigrated. Certainly, protections and provisions would be included in the terms and conditions negotiated during the UK’s exit from the EU.

For our part, we loved the lifestyle we lived in Spain and Portugal. Life was easier (or easy-going) and slower there. Far cheaper, too. And healthier. We walked rather than drove most days; typically, we ate less but healthier; and we drank far more red wine. As a “mañana mentality” took hold, we felt far less stressed and much more liberated. All in all, our quality of life greatly surpassed our cost of living.

Yet … Visits and vacations are different from full-time living and residence.

So, we dawdled, too comfortable in our intimacies and surroundings to actually make such a major move.

Perhaps it was the regular, routine Social Security payments I had worked a lifetime to earn. More probably, however, the political changes – first subtle, then crassly overt – which had changed the climate of our country, provided the real motivation for us to get going and relocate.

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Since my public school daysI'd seen a president assassinated, the murder of his assassin, and the death of his assassin’s assassin … all reported by the media, often “live” on our black and white TVs;

Later, I saw that same president’s brother assassinated as he, too, campaigned to become our country’s number one man;

I’d seen a Democrat – from Texas yet! – inherit the presidency, but decide not to seek another term because we had become so deeply entrenched in a war triggering marches on Washington and uprisings at campuses across the country (where students were shot dead by “first responders”);

I’d seen a president and his vice-president, both disgraced by scandals, resign from the two highest offices in the land;

I’d seen our first “unelected” president, when a congressman – but not the Speaker of the House – succeeded his predecessors;

I’d seen a well-meaning peanut farmer from Georgia elected president, a decent and truly Christian man, relegated to the back burners of history … remembered more for his brother’s beer than his own accomplishments (which finally are being realized and accredited);

I’d seen a beloved, second-rate actor become president and be shot (along with others) in front of our televised eyes … and, yet, despite the outcry, no real gun controls were effected;

I’d seen a father and son each elected president—the first for a single term, the second for two;

I’d seen a president selected by a partisan Supreme Court when the votes were so close and the election errors so many that day after day, week after week, a “winner” still couldn’t be called;

I’d seen a likable boomer – one of my own generation – impeached while in office because of alleged improprieties dealing with questionable real estate transactions and this president’s penchant for women, including consensual sex with a young intern whose stained, blue dress immortalized the evidence of his infidelities;

I’d seen the first black man elected President of the United States, yet denied his rightful responsibilities during eight years of impasse with a do-nothing Congress;

And I’d seen the first woman nominated to be our country’s commander-in-chief … only to be trumped, trounced, and toppled by a lying, cheating, hateful, taxevading, bankrupt, conflicted con man who had become a “brand” that abused and took advantage of people, denouncing them daily with tweets and promoting a helterskelter agenda of favoritism to the rich.

Flabbergasted, flustered, and furious, I began asking everyone who’d listen a series of “since when” questions.

Since when:

• Did the executive branch of our government become so authoritarian that the legislature cowers instead of confronting the mess (or rushes off to retire with its illbegotten gains and lifetime pensions)?

• Did members of Congress become “leaders” of this country, rather than representatives of the people who elected them … as if we were mere pawns in some preconceived, haphazard game of high stakes chess or roller-skating championships?

• Did it become all right for nepotism to be an acceptable way of governing this country, where non-credentialed family members wheel and deal with emissaries from foreign countries for personal gain right there on site in the White House?

• Did it become legitimate for subordinate staff and aides to claim “executive privilege” and refuse to testify before Congress and/or its designated special investigators?

• Did we become a people who cheer – whose religious leaders bless – malicious, slanderous, hateful, and divisive words of a toxic, laughingstock president and his henchmen?

• Did our country stand alone, apart from the rest of the world (especially our allies and trading partners), in such critical matters as climate change, first-strike warfare, trade wars and economic tariffs … all based on the nonsensical ramblings of one man whose ignorance is only surpassed by his ego and arrogance?

• Did we have such a revolving door of executive and administrative staff – ambassadors, advisers, agency heads, justice officials – coming and going … due, in large measure, to firings or their fear of being associated with criminals and/or criminal offenses?

• Did responsible statesmen deliberately ignore and refuse to investigate multiple alleged crimes and charges of injustice against a lifetime judicial nominee, so as to effectively rush through the confirmation of a new justice with dubious standards and questionable morality? Especially when that judge will serve as jurist in a potential trial of high crimes and misdemeanors (including treason) committed by the man who nominated him?

• Did our principal international nemesis (Russia) become a country whose leaders and politics are coddled and colluded … or where independent “back channels” between the Kremlin and White House are surreptitiously planned by players from both regimes?

• Did our government cater exclusively to the richest 1% of the country, while denying the other 99% even scraps from the banquet table?

• Did the administration in power benefit and take so much in personal pursuits and paranoid pleasures … a country whose president spends one-third of his time playing golf, a third tweeting or watching TV, and another third grand-standing before his base?

• Did it become legal to ambush trillions of dollars in new debt a year for tax cuts to appease the already privileged and patrons … only to warn that Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs we were required to pay into must be minimized?

• Did our chief executive dedicate himself with such glee to so swiftly and unilaterally dismantling myriad social welfare and infrastructure programs that guided and protected our people, basically to strike his predecessor president?

• Did it become acceptable to acknowledge – without corrective measures – that more than two-thirds of what a president says are proven lies?

• Did money so effectively dictate the rules of the realm, rather than the voices and votes of the people?

• Did the legitimate, mainstream press – always considered the fourth pillar of our government – degenerate into an “enemy of the people" … while hurried and bizarre social media platforms became the pedestals for fake news and alternative realities?

• Did we end becoming a melting pot of diversity, benefiting from the talents and hard work of immigrants seeking to contribute to a better life?

• Did democracy die in the USA?

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Since when did all these heinous things happen in a country birthed by liberty, freedom, and justice for all?

When?

Since November 2016, when Donald Trump was anointed president and commander-in-chief of this hitherto generous, gallant, compassionate country ... although some will maintain that planning for much of this usurping had been long in the making—by a complicit Congress, curtailed court system, and conspiring officials, whose patrons pull their (purse) strings ... to divert attention from their back room back-stabbing. And by too many people who should know better, but prefer to gloat in their deplorable despair and disdain.

> We lived in a place and time where – by and large – our elected representatives are beholden to their patrons, rather than to their constituents. They answer to no one (except themselves and their keepers) and exempt themselves from the rules that they make.

> We lived in a place and time where the disparity between the income of corporations and their executives is radically beyond the grasp of working people. And, yet, despite all the loot the rich have accumulated and stashed, it’s not enough. So, our Congress is intent on denying the safety nets ordinary people depend on, while giving even more money to those hoarding what they already have.

> We lived in a place and time where our legitimate mainstream media, hitherto the bastion of freedom and justice, have been summarily dismissed and replaced with alternative facts, truths, and realities. Bloggers and slanted nonsense are held in the same regard as our responsible press.

> We lived in a place and time where political gerrymandering has corrupted our Electoral College such that twice – twice! – within a generation, the people’s choices for president were overruled and citizens denied their right to vote.

> We lived in a place and time where we are isolated from the rest of the world, often the brunt of its jokes. We’re the only nation in the world not to sign on to global environmental protection agreements and accords. We’ve vacated our promises to trade with, protect, and support other countries (which now question whether we can be trusted anymore).

> We lived in a place and time where moneyed people against public education, investment people who caused our near financial collapse, opportunistic people who inflated the prices of critical medicines, energy executives who knew naught about diplomacy, hunting advocates, and people whose memories failed them on imperative legal matters, are now running the very government offices they had hijacked … but scientists and otherwise knowledgeable people are forbidden to speak truth to power.

> We lived in a place and time where a destructive, conflicted, ignorant, narcissistic, self-serving, delusional, degenerate believes he’s entitled to follow his own misguided interpretations of the words enshrined in our Constitution and other guiding documents. And that his own, private businesses should benefit from the country’s public business.

> We lived in a place and time where some of us sign petitions, write letters to editors, make telephone calls, knock on doors, use every technological advantage to speak our hearts and minds, march on occasion, gather for community and committee meetings … but our representatives decline to address us, collectively, in meetings.

Indeed, we lived in a desperate place and time. What kind of desperate measures, if any, should we be taking?

Each must do what we believe best, according to our own particular situations, strategies, and peculiar circumstances.

For us, the decision was to leave.

We will always consider ourselves American citizens, cast our votes in USA elections, and care about the land where we were borne. But to intake and inhale this poisonous venom, a contagious cancer that has spread across the United States and, through it, the world? No! Internalizing the strife, we were grief-stricken, mentally exhausted, spiritually drained, and physically disabled.

The time had come for us to move on: We would move from the USA to Europe as expats ...