Carmen and I made our permanent move to Costa Rica on October 2, 2020. Although that is only about ten months ago as I write this, it seems like a lifetime. It’s not that time stands still when you live in a beautiful tropical beach town. It’s that time is irrelevant. We get up when we want to, go to bed when we feel like it, eat meals when the desire strikes. Sunrise and sunset only waver by an hour or so around the year, temperatures only move up and down within a roughly 20 degree band, and the sun shines for at least a part of the day, every day. Even in the rainy season (which we are now beginning to enter) the sun will come out at some point, and that glorious walk on the beach can be accomplished under its glowing smile. There is a peaceful rhythm to life here that transcends the boundaries of time.

Even so, we are still a part of the world, and the rest of it has decided to enslave itself to the incessant ticking of clocks. It is when we look beyond the borders of our little adopted country that we must strap that device for measuring the moments of our existence to our wrist, and submit to it’s domination. I have reached such a moment. It is time to go back from whence I came, and pay my parents a visit.

Of course I am very glad to be seeing them again. Because of the pandemic we have all been forced to endure, I haven’t been together with them for nearly two years. That was never the plan, but the virus has changed everything, hasn’t it? It has even changed the way I view this upcoming trip.

I’m not a nervous traveler. During my career as a documentary film maker, I flew into war zones, hostile countries, and exotic places all over the globe. None of it ever gave me pause. But this upcoming trip has me very concerned.

I find myself not wanting to go back to The United States right now. Yes, it’s the country in which I was born, but it seems so foreign now. There are many people there who would rather ingest a horse deworming medicine instead of getting a Covid vaccine shot. They won’t even wear a mask! The country just admitted defeat in a 20-year war that accomplished nothing and, according to Marketwatch, cost the lives of 171,874 human beings, and will cost $6.5 TRILLION DOLLARS before the bills are paid off. Even though I no longer live in the U.S., I will continue to pay for that war. The U.S., you see, is one of only two countries in the world that taxes based on citizenship rather than residency. Eritrea is the only other country that does so, and I challenge you to point to that country on a map (Hint: Northeast Africa). And then there is this little matter of random and rampant gun violence. I could get shot and killed just for going to the grocery store (no, that doesn’t happen in Costa Rica). Finally, with Covid continuing to flourish in the U.S., I don’t relish the many hours I will spend in airplanes and airports.

You may be getting a bit angered by this post. As a U.S. citizen, you probably think that I’m overstating the bad and ignoring the good the U.S. has to offer. Now, I’m not saying that everything is all bad, but from the wider perspective that distance provides, when you look at the United States, the polished gleam it once had looks tarnished.

I have officially become a card-carrying Costa Rican resident. But I am, and will always be, a citizen of The United States. It is my home country, and I will always root for it to rub off that dull patina, so that it’s true virtues can shine through once again. But at the moment, my return trip will be an anxiety-filled journey.