People I’m Jealous Of
A retired guy’s non-exhaustive list
Expats
I am insanely jealous of those people — both old and young — who can put twenty things in a backpack and move halfway around the world to live in a culture completely different from where they grew up. Their posts on Medium and their YouTube adventures are like heroin to me.
They forgo the madness of the media-inflamed culture here in the States for a lease on a tiny home in a laid back community where they have a light bulb, a goat, a fire pit and live as comfortably as those amenities allow for three dollars a month. Unable to speak the language beyond the most rudimentary conversations about toilet paper, they are alone with their thoughts, day after day, month after month. But it’s not at all like being in prison. There is a small food market only a three-mile walk from their home where they buy vegetables picked that morning. They wave to their native-born neighbors as they make that same walk, that same beautiful, healthful walk, every morning. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. Thinking about how lucky they are.
I want that.
But it is impossible.
I hate traveling in all its forms: planes, trains, cars, donkeys. I become anxious when my local grocery store changes the location of the…
