why costa rica: the short list

I've been a busy bee, for months now, researching researching researching. I've looked into basically all of our options, from cities in the US to countries on nearly every continent. I just keep coming back to Costa Rica. Our second choice is Panama, but since it borders Costa Rica, we plan to explore Panama as well. Until our pensionado visas are approved, we will have to leave the country every 3 months, anyways. I suppose we could always end up moving to Panama, in the future, but we're definitely putting down roots in Costa Rica first.

I could blog about our decision for hours and fill pages upon pages, but it would probably bore you all. So for now, I'll leave you with my short list.

One thing not listed, but definitely worth mentioning, is that on one of my random Google searches, I happened to stumble upon a lovely lady named Emily, an American expat and writer of the Travel Mother blog. She, her husband, and two young children (close to the ages of our boys) have been living in Costa Rica. It has been fantastic to be able to shoot questions at her and receive honest responses from someone who has mostly the same priorities as us. She also pointed me to some helpful facebook groups. She may be the one who pushed me over the edge when I was debating between Panama and Costa Rica, in fact. I think it's comforting to know, going into it, that there are other native-English speaking families there, who could show us the ropes, so to speak, if needed. Not to mention... she is also currently raising the first canine addition to our Costa Rican family. Visit her blog if you have time! You won't be disappointed.

We are still just waiting on a few things with the VA and the Army so that we can go home to visit our family,  bid our goodbyes, and finally start living our new life in Costa Rica!

PTSD is a real problem... and we're moving because of it

On January 19th, 2008, while countering enemy fire on a rooftop in Mosul, Iraq, my husband was shot in the head by a sniper. Luckily, God was on his side, and after a surgery, he was fine. Well, that's what people assume, anyways. Let me tell you, though, living with someone who has chronic/severe PTSD, knee problems, sudden and unpredictable anger, anxiety, insomnia, migraines and memory loss (due to his brain injury) is not easy. So I can't even imagine what it must be like to be in his shoes. He can't focus, has trouble remembering things, gets nervous and anxious in large crowds, can't run or (some days) even walk without being in pain... and the medications that are supposed to help, have side effects just as bad! Even the littlest things, like going grocery shopping or out to eat for dinner, have to be carefully planned. In a restaurant, he has to sit somewhere where he can see the entrance to feel comfortable. The grocery stores are always packed around here, so I usually opt to go with a friend to save him the anxiety of trying to shop while surrounded by strangers. These are just a few of his daily challenges. Somehow, most days, he still manages to smile, to love, to be happy.

The helmet that he was wearing when he got shot. You can see the exit hole.

After three years as an Infantryman, two years as a UAV pilot, and a year in his current Restoration & Upkeep unit (where they send all the broken guys when they can no longer do their jobs), Aaron is now in the process of medically retiring from the Army. Yes, that means he will be retired at only 25 years old, and he will be receiving a pension. Do I feel guilty? Nope! He has given more of himself to this country in the last five years than most American citizens will in an entire lifetime. He (literally) isn't able to work anymore- he can't sit or focus long enough for a desk or office job, he doesn't have the patience or self-restraint to work in customer service, he can't be in large crowds for very long, and has too many physical problems to work in manual labor.

At only 24 years old, my husband is disabled both physically and mentally. Wow, as I typed that word, disabled, and read it now... I'm filled with sadness. He is a great man, filled with compassion and ambition, but most of his dreams aren't going to turn out how he'd hoped. There is one dream, however, that he has always had, that is still a possibility. It is something he has wanted to do for a long time, one of the things we talked about when we were younger.

  "I want to move out of the US," he said, "I want to raise my family somewhere else. I want my kids to experience and explore the real world." 

So we're planning to do just that- we're moving out of the country. For once, not because the Army ordered us to, but because we want to. We've been discussing and researching this for awhile now. We narrowed down our choices to five countries: Panama, Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Slowly, I crossed each country off the list, until only one remained. It was hard to find one place that met all of our criteria.... but we have decided.

This fall, after one more summer in Texas, we are moving to Costa Rica ♥

Since this is already a long post... I will be talking more about this on a series of posts that will probably be entitled something like, "why we want to move to Costa Rica" ...except hopefully I will come up with a more creative title.