Life In Costa Rica

What It Actually Took to Leave

No one tells you that ‘we’re moving to Costa Rica’ is the easy part. It’s everything that comes after that nobody ever mentions in those picture-perfect posts.

Where do you begin?

We had a house full of things. Ten years of things, half of which we hadn’t questioned owning until suddenly it was time to leave and we had to make impossible choices about everything we would pack in the five suitcases allowed us. That was the part that no one ever mentions — the part where you have to decide between the furniture that will come with you or the one you’ll have to store somewhere.

Start months in advance.. room by room.. posting on facebook post (bonus points if you are monetized on facebook) I posted sooooooo much on facebook for friends and family to buy. As soon as it was paid for, I would put it on the front porch for pick up. I truly would like to know what was going through potential home buyers head as they came to look at the house. But little by little things were disappearing. Two months out from us leaving we rented a storage unit and would take weekly trips to the storage unit with items we knew we couldn’t part with. Lastly, we had a garage sale (well technically we had two) and the majority of our stuff was gone! What was left we donated to the woman’s shelter in town. (We had 6 carloads full of stuff – if I’m being honest) and then there was nothing…. AND OH HOW WONDERFUL IT FELT.

We ultimately ended up with two smaller storage units— I am hoping to go through it next summer and liquidate more. Once we gain residency here, we will ship our belongings to us in Costa Rica. (Ill explain why we need to wait to import in another blog)

How did we get here?

We split everything into three categories:

• The things that will be sold
• The ones that will be stored
• The rest went away

Things went away faster than we expected once we started sorting. It was difficult to see our house slowly emptied of its belongings, piece by piece. First came the furniture, next the walls, and soon it looked less and less like our home.

The unsentimental part of this process is already over for us. When you start taking things away from your house, one by one, it’s easy to grow sentimental about the pieces that have to stay. The furniture that we couldn’t bear to part with is currently stored in a storage unit along with all the rest of our belongings that didn’t make the cut for our new home (YET).

The hard part wasn’t even liquidating our assets, much as it hurt to part with each piece of furniture. It was saying goodbye to little things, like dinners at our favorite spot in town and Slade favorite- Rayburn Country Club. It was realizing just how much had gone into making this move happen, physically and emotionally. There was a point when I had shingles because my body decided it couldn’t take any more stress and started shutting down. Between that and the vet bills, the trip to the state capital to take care of some paperwork, and a dozen other things, it was easy to feel defeated by the logistics of it all. It was more than just an emotional toll; it was a very real physical one. The long nights and early mornings were soon going to be worth it…

Five suitcases and a one-way ticket.

This is what we had at the end of the whole ordeal. Five suitcases worth of stuff, a couple of carry on bags and pets in tow, We were left with the bare essentials. We were evicted from our house the first part of July and we stayed with my parents for a good three weeks… It was good for Slade to spend extra time with family before leaving.

If you’re reading this and thinking about doing the same thing we did — considering selling your things to make the move easier — understand that it’s not half as impossible as it looks in the middle of it. We’re proof of that. We had our muddy sneakers and our cloud forest views, and everything else in between. I promise you will be much happier with less..