Separation Anxiety

Don’t move to La Paz if you suffer Separation Anxiety.  I didn’t figure this out until we’d already moved here.  It might be too late for me but perhaps my experiences will help you.

You know who you are.  You dream of a life in the sun.  Near the clear Sea of Cortés.  Perhaps you want adventure. A sailboat. Scuba diving. Hikes in the desert.  Or maybe you’re looking for a laid-back life. A hammock and a good book.  Possibly living in a foreign country is the allure. A new language and a rich culture.  Conceivably, you want it all.  Who can blame you?  But if there’s the remote possibility that you have Separation Anxiety, don’t do it!

Alex and I had no problem driving away from our life in El Norte.  We didn’t miss our jobs.  And we assumed our friends and family would flock to La Paz for long visits, so we didn’t feel separated from them.  We had begun our adventure.

Within our first week here, I’d joined a Spanish class at Marina Palmira.  The students, mostly cruisers, entertained me with their travel tales.  I developed ties to these new friends.  Then one day, after we’d lived here four months, anxiety hit me like a virus.

Dave and Vickie mentioned that they were going sailing.  I asked, “For the weekend?”  Dave said, “No, first we’re sailing to Hawaii for a few months and then The Marquesas and later who knows?”

“When will you be back?” I asked. 

Vickie shrugged.  I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

I felt as if I was six years old again.  Alone in our car in Boston.  My father had said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”  I didn’t know where he went or why he didn’t take me.  I waited.  And waited.  Was he lost?  I flattened my nose against the car window and searched the faces of each passerby but, until I saw Daddy’s face, I felt queasy.  Empty. Alone. 

Fast forward forty-eight years. I was sitting at Marina Palmira and the queasiness had returned.  I said to Yvonne, a classmate, “Dave and Vickie are leaving La Paz and might not come back!”  Yvonne said, “Judy, that’s what cruisers do.  They come for a week, a month or a year then many of them decide to sail away looking for new adventures.”

She might as well have been speaking in Martian.  How could they think of leaving La Paz?  And their friends?

Since then, boaters have sailed into my life and often, after a time, they’ve floated away, and I’ve tried to prepare myself by remembering Yvonne’s words. 

Cruisers may sail off, however, I expected stability from land-lovers. Their homes are made of concrete not fiberglass.  What could shake them from their lives here?

 Health issues are a major factor. Jorge and Marjorie were pillars of our ex-pat community.  They’d been in La Paz forever.  Almost as long as their historical home.  Saturday night meant only one thing to Alex and me – “movie night”.  Twenty-five people.  A collection of artist and poets. The ceiling timbers shook with talent. A cocktail of egos and a sprinkling of humility.

One night I said to Marjorie, “Do you realize that you and I are the only people in this room that don’t do anything?  We don’t write, paint or sculpt.”  She merely smiled and asked if I wanted more ice cream.  Later, a friend who had overheard whispered, “Don’t you know that Marjorie is a published poet”?  Later, Marjorie invited me to join a new Wild Poetry group that Lee Moore had formed.  “Me?” I asked.  Marjorie said it would be fun.  And it was.  I loved it.  And I loved them.  So when Marjorie and Jorge sold their house I was incredulous.  How could they leave La Paz?  And their friends?  My rational self accepted that health issues and family were involved but my damn little six-year-old still felt betrayed.

Family. Like the biological clock that can turn a formerly happy, childless  couple into frantic baby-obsessed individuals, a similar fixation may strike grandparents.  Without soccer games, dollhouses and playtime, they feel empty.  Alone.  So they sell their houses, promise to keep in touch, and leave La Paz while I sit on the warm beach feeling deserted.

Nevertheless, as quickly as people leave La Paz, others arrive. It takes something special to leave your birth country, your family and friends.  A drop of Gypsy blood.  But no blood or personality test exists to determine if one has “staying power”.  Some people move their bodies and belongings but leave their hearts and desires in El Norte.  They begin to complain about Mexico.  And, in time (if they can afford it) they return “home”.

Alex and I have had friends in each of these categories.  It’s been hard to see them go.  Some return to La Paz for a visit and it’s as if I can breathe more easily.

Luckily, Saturday has morphed from “movie night” into “Farmers Market Day”.  I meet friends. Chat.  And eat sweets. Last Saturday I traded hugs with Ginger, Helga, Yvonne, Sharon and Pat.  A normal Saturday morning.  Wait-just-one-minute!  Pat?  Pat Lowe-Bonner?  Pat who left La Paz and moved to Australia? Here for only three weeks? I had hugged her as if she still owned Casa Tuscany and we still saw each other three or four times a week including “movie night”.  In two weeks she’ll get on a plane and return to Australia and I’ll feel as queasy as if I’d hit air turbulence.

Is it possible that the drop of Gypsy blood that drew us to La Paz will boil again, pushing us to seek new adventures elsewhere?  Will the biological clock strike and pull us back to family?  Perhaps health issues will force us back north.  Maybe.  Until then, La Paz is my home. My friends are my family. And until a vaccine is developed, I will suffer Separation Anxiety each time a friend leaves.