Eight months ago we decided to pull our daughter out of kindergarten, rent out our house, and go on a four month worldschooling adventure. The first piece of planning was deciding where we wanted to go. We knew we wanted a Spanish speaking country and after months of consideration and research we decided on Costa Rica. We made lists upon lists of what we needed to do to make this dream happen. We were deliberate and thoughtful in our planning and preparations. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, the Universe gives exactly zero fucks (that’s how that saying goes, right?).
Our bad luck started about two months before our departure when our one year old got croup. If you’ve never experienced croup it is basically a parent’s worst nightmare, your kid sounds like they can’t breathe and they have this terrifying seal-like cough which keeps them and therefore you, up all night. There are few things more torturous than spending multiple nights in a row listening to your kid not being able to breathe and get the sleep you know they need in order to get healthy and breathe again. Croup segued into severe double ear infections for both kids, with high fevers and general misery. Our five year old is an old pro at ear infections but our one year old was literally crying and fussing all day, every day, for weeks. Weeks! Despite antibiotics. I couldn’t put him down, I couldn’t go on errands, I couldn’t do anything except try to comfort and distract him. We went back to the doctors and got a different antibiotic… which he then had an allergic reaction to. Uuugghhh. It only got worse from there.
One minute I was fine and the next minute I was uncontrollably shivering and felt like I was dying. The double ear infection hit me too and hit me hard, in ways I didn’t even know were possible. It required a trip to urgent care. Then I got laryngitis and couldn’t speak for three days, I could barely whisper. Do you know how hard it is to be a stay at home parent to two little ones without being able to speak? It’s fucking impossible.
Then the biggest blow came, one of our dogs, our sweet goldendoodle Noodle, suddenly was unable to use her back legs. We spent a ton of money on treatments thinking it was a disc issue, including driving her to the vets every other day for laser therapy, a big feat while we were ill. The treatments did absolutely nothing. After spending a ton more money on an MRI we finally figured out she had an inoperable tumor on her spine. This news was devastating, we love our Noodlehead and this threatened our entire trip. My mom was going to watch the dogs while we were gone but we couldn’t leave a large paralyzed dog with her to manage. Noodle needed to be lifted every time she needed water or to eat or to go potty. We wondered if we should put her down, a thought that had me sobbing on the floor while hugging our girl at the vet’s office. It was all so sudden! We couldn’t live with ourselves if we put her down in a rush just so we could go off on a trip to Costa Rica, especially when she was totally fine otherwise and not in any pain (she couldn’t feel anything, thank goodness). So we decided to do more expensive treatments, this time radiation. More driving to the vet every 1-2 days. We knew it wouldn’t make the tumor go away but at least it would give her another six months or so of mobility and give us time to figure out what to do next.
In one work week we had 10 doctors’ visits.
Our roof started leaking.
Our plumbing got backed up.
I spent weeks preparing our veggie beds and planting cover crops so the soil would be in good shape when we got back and then my daughter accidentally left the chicken gate open and they destroyed all my work in just a couple hours.
I had the worst month of pain related to my adenomyosis that I have ever had. So. Much. Pain. Invisible pain, which just really sucks because you can tell someone you are hurting and within five minutes they assume you’re already better. No one offers to help, they expect you to go on like normal. But anything resembling normal requires an enormous amount of mental energy and
Rats chewed through the wiring in our van disabling one blinker. Another unexpected expense and a huge hassle.
While our five year old didn’t complain much about her ear infection, it severely impacted her hearing. We went to the doctors (again), I asked about tubes. He brushed me off. Another two weeks go by and my daughter still couldn’t hear. I get an appointment with an ENT doc, he immediately recommends tubes. The only day we can squeeze into his schedule for the procedure is the 26th of December, when we were supposed to be out of town staying with grandparents for the holiday. It was either that or destroy her gut with more and more antibiotics though. Belated Christmas was canceled. We went in for the surgery on the 26th only to discover she had a fever; the surgery was postponed and Christmas Take Three was canceled.
My laptop started its death spiral. Another big unexpected expense.
Before we have the chance to recover from the ear infection related sickness we get norovirus. Norovirus!
This was all on top of having to do approximately 43,000 things to get ready to leave, like getting all our vaccines, having my daughter’s first cavities filled, getting landlord insurance, figuring out where the hell we were going to stay in CR, renting a car, pulling my daughter out of school, getting mulch on the ground, getting our water storage tanks ready for the rainy season, etc. etc. We finally get everything squared away, we get the house all packed up, and then…the worst case scenario… the person who was going to rent our house while we were gone, making it possible for us to go on the trip (financially and because she was going to take care of our chickens), tells us she can’t live at our house. On the day of our flight.
What the actual fuck??? What was the Universe trying to tell us???
I may not be religious but I am fairly faith-full when it comes to the Universe providing signs and the importance of listening to those signs. It’s been made clear to me again and again that when I am where I need to be, doing the things I need to be doing, everything goes more smoothly. I refer to it as being in the Universe’s flow. When I am making choices that are not good for me, everything is hard. So was the Universe trying to tell me Costa Rica wasn’t a good decision? Honestly, when the renter pulled out I would have thought so, if it were not for one small lifeline…
When I was in my early twenties I spent a school year living, studying, drinking, and dancing in Heredia, Costa Rica. That year was one of incredible highs and crushing lows. It was classic early-twenties identity formation, rarely a smooth process. I was wildly swinging from elation to extreme self-doubt. I was in a new country on my own, feeling more alive than ever, with my mind on fire with learning and challenge; I was also asking myself regularly, “what the hell am I doing??”
Every morning in Heredia I would have a hot and sticky two mile walk to school. I'd bust out my big headphones (when they were cool the first time around) and my minidisc player for a pick me up and to drown out the catcalls. I’d listen to the same music every day, a mixed cd a girlfriend had made for me. On the cd was the song Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel. I had never heard it before but that song quickly became my anthem. It is a song about defying norms and what other people say, and taking a leap of faith to find your own way, your own home.
“Climbing up on Solsbury Hill, I could see the city light Wind was blowing, time stood still Eagle flew out of the night He was something to observe Came in close I heard a voice Standing stretching every nerve Had to listen had no choice I did not believe the information Just had to trust imagination My heart going boom boom boom “Son,” he said “grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.”
That song reassured me, it made me feel like I was on the right path, I was where I needed to be even if it was intensely challenging and it was so different than what my friends were doing. My home was (and is) where I feel alive in adventure, where I feel joy, and where I am stretching myself.
When we were finally getting in the car to leave our house for this current adventure to Costa Rica we were so exhausted and emotionally spent that we could barely speak. Our children started laughing and screaming deliriously. We laughed too. It was hours after we had planned to get on the road and hours past their bedtime. We had a long drive to my mom’s house to drop off the dogs to get through and we were in a state of shock from weeks of sleep deprivation and the intensity of recent challenges. After about twenty minutes of stunned, silent driving I finally turned to my husband and said,
"Dude, we just left our house for four months…"
"…and are going to live in Costa Rica" he added.
"We just lept. This is us leaping. Right now."
I finish saying the word "now" and what song starts playing on the radio that instant... Solsbury Hill. I kid you not.
I tell my husband, "I know you don't believe in magic, but this is magic" and immediately start crying. All that struggle, all the doubt, it went away when I heard that song.
You can believe what you want but I choose to believe that that was the Universe's way of saying, "You are on the right path, you are where you need to be." I can’t actually think of a clearer sign, there was nothing subtle about it, that song and its significance to me was like the Universe flashing a large neon sign two inches from my face. I am on the right path, I am where I need to be.
So when the renter pulled out two days later just hours before our flight and people started asking us if we were still going to go, I held onto that song for dear life. I chose to hold on to that sign. That is what I have learned, the Universe may give us these signs but we are the creators of our own lives and we create our lives by the choices we make, by the way we chose to interpret those signs, and by the way we frame the struggles we endure. I chose to look at the past few months of shitty shit as the compost for this adventure. We will be better able to handle any hardships we now face abroad because we’ve just been through the wringer; we aren’t going to sweat the small stuff.
I don't know where this path is leading. I do know there will be bumps along the road. And I am grounded in knowing that we are on the right path, that we are exactly where we need to be. We are making our own way and finding home.
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