The Expat Sweet Spot

You found a hairdresser you like and can afford. You decide you enjoy food shopping every day. You love the fact you can catch the bus outside your house, and literally three minutes later, find yourself standing in a grocery store weighing bananas. I've timed it.

You traded in the emergency 'almost' English speaking doctor for one who actually speaks English and it's not an emergency.

The fact she called a prescription a 'recipe' and your heart nearly stopped because all you can picture is the three witches from 'Charmed' making a potion to rid the world of yet another demon, is fleeting because then you offered her the word 'prescription' and she eagerly accepts it, and this becomes just another funny story to you. But you feared this rightly so, because you have had to mix your own antibiotics, so being offered 'the recipe' didn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility. But instead of being so freaked out by the verbal exchange that you had to devote an entire blog to it, it's now worthy of only a paragraph. Or two.

You make peace with the fact things move on at 'home' without you. But you know where there will be a daiquiri or a glass of wine waiting for you or even a bed, should you pop up.

You have favorite restaurants. You know where parking is cheap (er). You have traditions with girlfriends. You join the locals in favorite pastimes. You hike. You start repeating hikes.

You start having strange thoughts. What if we could stay longer? You think about how very nice it is to raise kids here. Like free range chickens.  No cages. Good food.  Lots of time outside. A stronger family unit in which siblings are friends- most days.

What you are experiencing is "The Expat Sweet Spot". It's a thing. And you're in the middle of it.

How long it will last remains to be seen. It's human nature to try to peer around the bend. What's next?

I don't know. But today is pretty nice.