A New Reality

       

    We were at a dinner with some friends the other night to welcome a couple who had just arrived from the States and were busy setting up their new apartment here in Loja. As the evening progressed and I listened to everyone talking about where they had come from, and how they were enjoying their new life here in Ecuador, I was struck by my own lack of perception or introspection about what was going on in our lives.

   The pandemic has turned everything on it’s head for everyone, but it has been particularly jarring for us I think. At least for me. Our journey here was never supposed to be leaving home forever. It was simply a new adventure, and it has definitely been that, but not in the way I expected. When we left Canada it was to continue our exploration of different cultures and different places maybe for one last time before, as I put it at the time, “I have to start wearing a diaper.” I have to admit that not a lot of introspection went into what the ultimate goals were, or how long this latest adventure was going to last. Were we going to be out here until Sharon had to dig a hole for me somewhere? Or were we going to go back to the frozen North when we decided we had had enough. Those discussions never happened. And sitting at dinner the other evening I suddenly realized that, whether I liked it or not, circumstances have made a lot of choices for us while we weren’t looking. While we were just trying to avoid Covid, a lot of other things were changing for us as well.

   Firstly, it has become fairly evident that our “home and native land” is rapidly becoming a place we can no longer afford, even if we decided we wanted to go back. Being debt free in comfortable surroundings has become addictive. Oh I can hear you, and I am well aware that my profligate ways in my misspent youth are the direct cause of the four digit bank balance I now enjoy, and not the seven or eight digit one I would need to live this way in Canada. Do I regret my youthful choices? No, but had I known that at this point in my life, my options were going to be; Ecuador or an old refrigerator box on the downtown east side in Vancouver, I would have at least paused for a moment before deciding that it was still better to be the grasshopper than the ant. But every day I thank Ecuador for being here to save my sorry …backside.

Secondly, I have become accustomed to predictably decent weather these past 18 months, Having the occasionally gloomy rainy day every few weeks is a giant leap up from the five months of doom that the Vancouver winter provides. The dog used to look at me with his, “please, can we go outside just for a minute!” Now he looks at me with his, “What?!! we’re going walking again?”

But I have to admit that at that dinner the other night it came as a shock to realize that some fairly important decisions had been made by circumstances while I was engaged in my usual hobby of  just looking out the window thinking of nothing. And that means there needs to be a whole re-evaluation of what’s happening here. Turns out we are no longer visiting here, we are home. This is where we live. At least for the foreseeable future. Who knew? Well of course I should have, and, with that in mind, I need to start looking around me with the eyes of a resident and not the fleeting gaze of a tourist. I have travelled all over the world my whole life, but always with the knowledge that I was Canadian and that's where I would eventually turn up my toes. This new reality is a whole different head space to absorb, and some considerable mental adjustment will have to take place over the next little while.  So, you, dear reader, will have to give me a moment to adjust and, when I have digested this new reality, I’ll get back to you. No doubt with some blinding flash of perception that will change your life forever. Until then, just wear the dam mask will you. At least then I'll have someone to share emails with!