Relocating Sanely

I posted this a couple of years ago to a forum for American expats in Portugal, where it went viral. This pleased me, because it induces a helpful shift of perspective, and I haven't met many Americans here who are even marginally sane. They're mostly starring in movies in their heads about their Marvelous Portuguese Adventure Where They're Living Happily Ever After And Isn't It—And Aren't They—Marvelous??? Once the ditzy mania wears off, they tend to quietly sell everything and slink back to Tampa or Cleveland.

Early on, I was lucky enough to settle into a framing which has worked beautifully, and puts me in a completely different world than any of my fellow expats: I've swapped in a better/cooler backdrop. That's all. Life continues as before, only sunnier and with better food and much nicer people and lower expenses. Same life, new backdrop. A modest change, in the end, but a very welcome one.

Every day, I go outside and enjoy the backdrop, and it never gets old. I don't have to mentally place myself in the picture ("It's me doing that thing!"). This isn't some exciting chapter in my Life Trajectory. It's still the same me living the same life, only now it smells like garlic and grilled fish and it's sunny. Nice!

If you ever do a move like this, this is how to frame it for optimal mental health.

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I'd like to help immunize newer arrivals against a potential peril.

Once the initial giddiness subsides, and you've explored environs and chilled in the plaza and strolled by the ocean and consumed 45 plates of bacalhau a bras, you'll experience a lull. You'll feel oddly reluctant to seize the day. You'll want to lazily surf YouTube pet videos or whatever. You suddenly lack motivation to Celebrate Portugal.

And you'll recognize that Portugal's not going to celebrate you, either. It all just keeps rolling out there, obliviously. Yikes.

If you've been harboring grand cinematic views of your sweeping expatriation narrative (i.e. your "Forever Home" or whatever), you will feel gut-punched by this return-to-earth. This is just another place! You frantically re-list the benefits, but pastel de nata and fado, alas, do not fill all gaps. You're bored. You're small. You're stalled. What am I doing here? Was this a mistake?

There is an antidote to such moments; a reframing I'd suggest you keep handy:

How scintillating were your previous environs? Were you perpetually stimulated and delighted? No! That's not what home is like! And you're experiencing Portugal as home.

Home isn't scintillating. Vacations are scintillating. And vacations are not eternal. If this were a few weeks of visiting sunny Portugal, you could expect unflagging excitement. But home isn't always exciting. So at some point you need to step down (like a voltage converter) from tourist eagerness to everyday life-living. It's not deflation. It's not a stall. This is just what home is like.

And if the lull persists, remember you're a 30€ roundtrip flight from Milan. The greatest tapas on the planet are a four hour drive. Such diversity at your fingertips! Living in Akron or Seattle, you'd need to go to vast trouble and expense to change your channel. So don't forget to take vacations - once being in Portugal stops feeling like a vacation of its own. Which it will!

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I didn't include this in my posting, but if you have no life - if you've been nothing aside from your job and/or your relationships and you haven't cultivated a sense of self beneath the facade and beyond the roleplay—then don't move to a place like this. Unless, that is, you have the social wherewithal to re-contruct or transpose the facade, or create a new one. A new locale will not supply you with a story for yourself (at least not one that endures for more than a few months). A place is just a place.

Me, I don't need a story to tell myself about myself. I'm not doing roleplay or starring in a movie. But apparently that's rare. 🤷🏻