I don’t remember when I first got the idea that I wanted to live in Costa Rica. It may have been when U.S. President George W. Bush appointed a North Dakotan as ambassador to Belize that I became intrigued with Central America.
The more I read about the area, the more drawn I was to Costa Rica: a democracy, no standing army, a variety of temperate climates, located between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Sounded like my kind of place.
I tried to convince my wife, Sue that we’d move to Costa Rica after our youngest daughter graduated from college. Never one to get overly enthusiastic about leaving her tight-knit Norwegian family, Sue would usually respond with silence, sometimes with a snort.
A few years after we moved from Bismarck to Fargo, North Dakota, a series of events happened that drastically changed our lives, and my life, forever.
Life Changes Forever
A highly respected and talented addiction counselor, Sue started her own addiction treatment center in 2000, which took all of her energy and time. A couple of years later her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and moved into our home in Fargo to be close to the Roger Maris Cancer Center, where she was being treated. She died six months later.
Two-and-a-half years after that, Sue was diagnosed with a rare brain disorder and Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS). I cared for her in our home with the help of Hospice and some great relatives, neighbors and friends. She died in June of 2006. Five months later I had a heart attack. Stress, the doctors said.
In December of 2007, I lost my copywriting job in advertising that I’d held for 12 years. Four months and one completed screenplay later, before my severance package ran out, I was recruited to come back into the oil business as a petroleum landman, a job I had held in the early 1980s.
So here I am in mid-2009, a widower with three grown daughters, three small grandsons, two Boston Terriers, IRAs that have tanked, and a job that requires constant travel, trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.
During my journey through the mind-numbing grief over my losses, I have done much soul searching. I have decided that I’m a survivor, and as I consider my options, I keep coming back to my dream of living in Costa Rica. But where?
That brings me to my decision to move to Atenas, the city that National Geographic Magazine says has the World’s best climate.
How I am Preparing for Atenas
To prepare for my move, I have Googled Atenas, bought books on Costa Rica (I look immediately to see what each one says about Atenas), and I have taken a community education class in Spanish from a woman who refused to speak English before, during, or after the classes. I also subscribe to “Atenas Today,” and last year I took a wonderful Caravan Tours tour of Costa Rica.
To become a member of the Atenas community, I belonged for a year when it needed start-up help, to Linea Vital, the city’s private ambulance and medical service. I will become a full member the month before I step foot on Costa Rican soil. I also donated money to help the Atenas mudslide victims.
What’s next? For the time being, I continue to dream about life in Costa Rica and to work on my Spanish. Next January I will visit Atenas for a month so I can get to know the town and its residents – expats and Ticos alike. I think this will help me discover for myself if my dream is realistic or if I’d be better off living in my oldest daughter’s garage.
