Musings on Leaving Home

Today marks 54 years since I left home for California at the age of 19. When I think back on that trip and the early days after my arrival in L.A., so many changes have taken place in my life since then, it's as though that early me was someone else.

Of course I suppose almost all adults experience that kind of realization.  Yet, in my wildest dreams back then  I never thought I'd wind up spending my twilight years living abroad, let alone in the Philippines,  a place which at that time  I knew very little about. Naturally, I had even less of an inkling that I would eventually meet and marry someone from there and that we would wind up   leaving the U.S. to live in that country. 

Contrast all that with some of my high school classmates with whom I've reconnected on Facebook who've  never left my home town, except maybe for college but which was also in the same state. I sometimes reflect on what life must be like to stay in the same city from childhood through  old age. And I have to wonder whether those who do so ever fully mature for not having engaged in the real world outside their comfort zone. 

How about you, fellow expats? Do you ever ask yourself how you would have turned out if you hadn't left the place where you spent your childhood years, and for that matter your country of origin?

Digging In For the Long Haul

When my wife Lydia and I retired  and relocated from the U.S.  to the Philippines, in 2005  it was mainly for financial considerations. I didn't expect that we would ever return to the States. Yet despite my eagerness for us to start a new life In Lydia's native country I  was sorry to have to leave America and wished that it weren't necessary to take that step..

Now It so happened that at that time George W. Bush had recently begun his second term as  POTUS, and I really considered  him a dumb incompetent and that  his political and economic policies, especially the ones  that eventually  resulted in the Great Recession in 2007 were abhorrent. Then there was his mishandling  of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

Yet as bumbling and inept as Bush was through all his missteps, one thing I never considered him to  be was malicious and demagogic. Donald Trump of course is these and more. He has  unleashed a climate of bigotry among his base of supporters that has turned the U.S. into an ideological cesspool by among other recent actions lending support including  a pardon for a federal conviction to right wing extremist and ant-Semite  Dinesh D'Souza.   Further, Trump has disgraced  the office of the presidency with his narcissistic erratic behavior and destructive discourse. He lies like a rug almost daily and should have already impeached based on his violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause .  I shudder at the prospect of ever having  to  repatriate to a country with this sad excuse of a human being as its leader.  

Life  in the Philippines is often frustrating. But  the difficulties that we've  encountered in living here for the past 13 years pale in comparison to the hardships we would likely face if we were to repatriate. And those in turn would be compounded by the constant awareness  that it's Trump and his fellow Republicans who are largely responsible  for growing economic difficulties that elderly and other Americans of modest means are experiencing. 

So Lydia and I are content with the life that we've made here. In fact when people often ask whether I ever wish I could go home, my reply is that I'm already there. And with the state of affairs  in the U.S.as they are now, that's more  the case than ever.