“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over…

If you knew it would all be ok, would you worry just the same?
My last post had the above heartfelt reminder in what was to be a very long and involved post, and then it all went Poof and what was left was this image from a house I used to live in “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over… it became a butterfly”.  The house I had been living in with the quote at the bottom of this post was flooded terribly in the last Tropical Storm Sarah. Thankfully no one was in the house at the time, it would have been terrifiying, think crocodiles and who your fridge floating away… Tropical storm Sarah thrashed Costa Rica, with record breaking damage. Many Costa Rican’s that lived near rivers lost everything, and they didn’t have much to begin with. It seems like everywhere has been effected by something lately, in Europe, along the East Coast of the US got hit really hard. Ashville was always somewhere I wanted to visit and I hope they are able to recover as I’ve heard such lovely things about the spirit of Ashville. The areas that were hit the hardest in Costa Rica, it was the loveliest of good-hearted people, living simply to let others live, living together with their families and then losing the little that they had, breaks your heart.

The sun has finally returned, the rains have slowed significantly and things have mostly dried out and as people go about their lives again…I wonder how do you go back to having faith again?  It’s what we do though, we always have to move on, and be smart about what we choose going forward. I am so grateful that I moved in April to higher ground and didn’t experience the flooding over at my old house…gosh the fridge was floating, and there were crocodiles…this was always a fear of mine when the river would breech and come close, being a single mom in a isolated spot in the woods… There were several occasions it came close to flooding while I lived there and the house felt like an island. I always had to rise to the occasion of ‘being brave’…it’s amazing though when you pass through these challenges and are no longer in a position to face that threat constantly…it goes poof.

It’s not a fun feeling to have worry in the back of your mind, maybe there will be a new generation of engineers that emerge from this that help communities build to avoid flooding?? I hope so, we could definitely use more of that. This last storm knocked out bridges, isolated communities and caused 800 landslides in Costa Rica, it knocked out power, the internet, powerlines around the area…there was even a day that Samara was totally cut off from access and the power outage made us unable to open our electric gate to leave…we didn’t have to key to open it manually and the property manager couldn’t being it because of the downed powerlines.

Everything is always a matter of perspective. I know we are always blessed and people are experiencing chaos all over the world, so many emotions, so many fears…it becomes harder and harder to get and stay grounded, to remember to breath and find your center. For us, it has felt like one thing after another and I’m sure there are so many people going through similar things, and through it all I am reminded to be grateful, so grateful.

All the uncertainty in this world has people reevaluating life choices, and where they want to be, who they want to be…it reminds me of the time in the caterpillars life, where everything it knows is about to end, and the new begining will be oh so beautiful. I hope that is what’s to come, I’m not sure if following along will get us there, or if we just need to seekout and create our own happy ending, likely it’s that. “And just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, it became a butterfly….”

We all have to figure out what works for us. Where we fit. People are often asking about living in Costa Rica, since so many people rearrange their whole lives to live here and it ends up being…not their final resting place, as they may have thought.  People have said it’s easy to vacation here, but hard to live.

It’s paradise, it’s amazing.

But you have to be able to roll with the punches of every day life not going how you planned it would. Like random power and internet outages, grocery stores running out of or no longer offering your favorite thing, not having everything at your fingertips, not having amazon, not having 24/7…anything, or uber….but, we have clean air, sunshine, friendly people and a whole different way of life. You have to really think about can you handle not being in control of everything. Can you appreciate finding adventure in the roads being filled with crater lakes and your car needing repairs consistently, can you drive slower, can you slow down, everything, way down. Can you appreciate the beauty of nature around you? Can you face what will inevitably come up in you when faced with these challenges? Life is a bit wild and unpredictable, but sometimes predictably slow.

I implore you to only move here if you will be concientious of your impact on the community and the environment, and leaving things better, or leaving no footprints, but maybe consider multiple visits prior to relocation as it’s not for everyone. It will be an amazing adventure, that is for certain.

Some people do get bored not being able to access everything, or indoor activities, and some find going back and forth or traveling to other places gives them the right balance of stimulation and relaxation. This is what my son feels will be best. He loves Samara, the community, his friends and school. Mareas Academy built an incredible new school and we look forward to all that will come, all the memories to be made. Everytime he visits somewhere else, he can’t wait to go home to Samara, but he still wants to explore and see new parts of the world.

His current adventure involves learning video editing and content creation, he’s really into it right now and building a youtube channel @falling4robux (please subscribe, his goal is 1k subscribers) He’s trying out different things from Roblox gaming, to filming tricks to greenscreening, and finding his voice…in a previous post I mentioned that I was trying to get him to continue practicing guitar and he’s not into it…I had to come to terms that this, right now, this is his thing, and he’s loving it, so I’ll let him do what it is that he loves, and see where it goes… We’re all on our journey to fly, right?