Final days; so full of busyness – winding down and saying goodbyes while making preparations for what lies ahead.  Emotions range from the sadness that comes from leaving friends, disappointment from having to cut the experience short, leaving questions of what could have been, excited anticipation at seeing family, friends and our dogs again and heaping doses of wonder and awe at how this place and the people could have left such an indelible mark in a seemingly short time.  In the fabric of our life, Costa Rica and the people who’ve touched our hearts here have woven themselves in deeply where they will remain forever part of us.

Last week I shared the things we have missed from life back in the United States, along with the things we don’t miss and those we thought we’d miss, but don’t. As we get ready to turn the keys to Rhodeside over to the new caretakers and board a plane back to Austin, I thought I’d share some of the things we won’t miss about Costa Rica and the things we will. Spoiler alert – one of those lists is much longer than the other.

What We Won’t Miss About Costa Rica

The human brain is a funny thing. It loves to rewrite history, smoothing over rough edges to make events seem much better than they actually may have been. It’s why some people think back on the high school years and declare them the glory days – somehow forgetting the pimples, the hormones, the break-ups, the mean girls, the wanting to fit in while desperately pretending you don’t care.  If our brains didn’t do this little memory scrub, no one would run a marathon, start another business after one fails, rebuild after a hurricane, and the world would be full of only children.

I am aware of this tendency and can promise you, it’s already happening and I’m not even gone. The little annoyances – heck, even the big ones – are now just lumped together into the category labeled “All Part of The Journey”.  But those who have been following along on our adventure know there are at least a few items on the list of things I am not sad to leave behind. So here they are.

Mold earns the #1 spot. Moldy clothes, moldy towels, moldy trees. The things I saw with mold on them proved to me that anything can mold. The fridge, the stove, the tea kettle – even people complain about getting little fungus spots on them during the rainy season. WHAT!?! I had no idea! I cannot stand mold! It grosses me out, but worse than that even, it makes me sick. I have a mold allergy, so just the sight of it is enough to make me sneeze. In my time here, my gigantic hatred for the fuzzy stuff was transformed into a very strong aversion, but even still, it hands-down is the thing I am most eager to get away from! And hopefully this little spot on my neck will go away.

Bugs. They haven’t bothered me much since my first week here.  Make no mistake, they are everywhere. But for whatever reason, I made peace with them and learned to co-exist. Early on it became obvious that in the jungle, we are the guests. The critters, the bugs, the snakes, the plants and trees – they were all here first and they outnumber us and are far more powerful a force than we could ever dream of being. So they let me stay here and I learned to look the other way (once I looked long enough to determine they weren’t venomous).  Having said all that, as my mind moves ahead imagining eating dinner back home in Austin, I must admit it will be cool to not have to check my glass for insects.

The inherent danger here and unpredictability is something else we’re okay leaving behind. The list of deadly snakes, spiders and insects is longer than I’d prefer it to be and when you live largely without walls, you must maintain a constant level of awareness and vigilance. Mother Nature is an incredibly powerful force and we will leave Costa Rica with a far greater appreciation for her than ever. From earthquakes to torrential downpours that don’t let up for days, you can never be too prepared for the unexpected. In the wake of the earthquakes and rains, you never know when trees will come crashing down – taking powerlines with them and blocking the roads – or a massive side of a mountain will unleash as earth and trees come pouring down. It’s a wondrous place, full of absolute beauty, but you can never turn your back and fully let your guard down. I won’t miss that.

A few other things we’re fine saying goodbye to include the bumpy, pothole-filled dirt roads, the near constant worry about what might break next, followed by the angst about how we’ll fix it and the feelings of inadequacy as we often struggle to effectively get our point across in a language we know we should be better at.

These feelings are already fading quickly. Give me one more week and that list will be down to nothing.

What We Will Miss Most About Costa Rica

So many things will be missed! Too many to possibly list and I suspect as time goes on, we’ll continue to think of things to add to it. So I’ll stick to the biggies.

The critters, starting with our sweet chickens, who after Mr. Rooster died became Dave’s little harem, following him everywhere he goes. We have laughed at their wacky antics, forgiven them for pooing on the porch, marveled at Little Red Hen becoming a wonderful mommy, and cried when nature did its thing and left us with fewer of them to love. They have brought us such joy!

The Howler Monkeys are very special to us as well. We’ve enjoyed their frequent visits, and despite the fact that they ate our fruit and damaged our papaya trees every time, we never got tired of seeing them. Our little troupe of mischievous monkeys have to be the most photographed monkeys in all of Costa Rica. The fact is, if you’ve seen one monkey photograph, you’ve seen them all. But that never stopped me.

We’ll miss the coatimundis, the iguanas, the beautiful birds – each with it’s own unique song. The funny white-tailed squirrels, the elusive deer (only saw two the entire time we were here), the sea turtles, the butterflies – the list goes on. And we will miss seeing them every day.

The soundtrack here is another thing we are going to miss. We went from living in the heart of busy, growing Austin, TX to the jungle – where car horns and bar sounds were replaced with babbling brooks, croaking toads and dozens of various bird songs. The rain here is indescribable. It’s hard to imagine how so much rain can fall from the sky for so many hours. But when it does, the sound of it on the tin roof is soothing and we’ll miss the afternoon rain showers.

A month or so into our stay, we found ourselves relaxing and letting go in a way we’d never done before. We slowed down and then slowed some more as we synced up with the rhythm of life here in rural Costa Rica. It was the slowing that allowed space for pondering and day dreaming. It also left time for crafting, cooking and baking, reading and writing. For whatever reason, these were luxuries I never allowed myself without feelings of guilt for wasting time. There was always something more pressing or more important or a better use of my time. Here, time feels endless and I will miss the pace and the freedom. Though we are committed to bringing home with us our Costa Rica Calm.

We will miss fresh bananas, limes, pineapples and papaya straight from the garden. We will miss the lush vegetation and the hundreds of shades of green all around. We will miss our daily walk to the beach, where every person passing by is a neighbor and greets you with a wave or a toot of the horn. We will miss the freedom to wake with the sun and sleep when it sets and to fill our day as we please.

Of course the thing at the top of the list, rising far above the rest, are the friends we’ve made while we were here. From the very first week, they welcomed us into their homes with open arms and plates of homemade food. They invited us for sunset cocktails, they helped us when our car broke down, when the power line fried, when appliances broke, when the septic system malfunctioned, when the shower stopped draining. Whether we just needed tools or we needed ideas or manpower, someone was always there to do what they could. And never; not once, did anyone say, “Figure it out on your own.”

We have cooked together, learned Spanish together, made coconut oil from scratch together. We walked the beach collecting supplies to turn into art, we celebrated birthdays and we carpooled for the full day bi-weekly trip to get groceries and supplies. The list of things we have learned from the friends we made here is longer than my arm. We have loved every moment of becoming a part of this incredible community of loving people and they are what makes leaving here the hardest.

Goodbyes are tough. I have no idea what adventures lie ahead for Dave, Ladybug, Leo and I. What I do know is that as hard as the goodbyes are, having people in your life who you’re sad to leave and who are equally sad to see you go is worth the tears. If we lived our lives shielding our hearts from loss, we’d never know the magnificence of all we gain by allowing people in. If we let all the “what ifs” keep us from taking a big leap, we’d live with the questions of what might have been.

We came, we saw, we left. That’s no way to travel or to live. We showed up with our hearts open, we got to know the land, the locals and we became a part of the community, and we leave with a lump in our throats and tears in our eyes. We came, we lived, and we loved. There’s nothing sad at all about that.