Five Years On

These past few weeks, Facebook and Photos Apps memories have been popping up with what I was doing five years ago. There was a lot going on.

Five years ago, we were settling into our new home in Portugal. We had been incredibly naive. It was way harder than we thought it would be.

As a tourist, Portugal was super easy to navigate. Friendly and helpful people, great food, good roads with reasonable drivers, good public transportation, lower expense/cost of living, beautiful weather. Seemingly everyone spoke English (except, of course, our realtor, which should have tipped us off).

We went in blind, excited, a little apprehensive. We spoke nearly no Portuguese except for the pleasantries (and even those, we likely butchered). We knew exactly three people: our realtor, our lawyer and our banker.

We had (or Melissa had, to be fair) the foresight to order some basic furniture online, in advance, from a Swedish company. That furniture was scheduled to be delivered on our third day in town. As such, we had booked a hotel for three nights. The furniture didn’t come. We extended our hotel stay.

Our hot water heater was the wrong kind. We had no hot water. The dishwasher wasn’t hooked up. We got taken by a “handyman” who charged us for a visit to address an issue with the washing machine and didn’t fix anything. But he spoke English, so that was a plus. We extended our hotel stay, yet again.

Our furniture arrived. The delivery man spoke only Portuguese. He angrily refused to help bring it up to the apartment and dumped it on the sidewalk, on its pallets, in its boxes, in the rain. A helpful neighbor helped us navigate the heaviest stuff up the stairs and around the angles and bends.

We got hot water working, and our sparse collection of furniture was set up, so we left the hotel, 7 days later than planned.

We needed dishes and cooking utensils and silverware. We found the mall. It was harder to find than you’d think. The internet, at the time, was not super helpful. Pre-COVID, most stores had little or no online presence, at least that we could find. We recognized almost none of the store names and brands. We would spend days wandering around the mall or streets of our town, peering into shops thinking “do they sell toasters in there?”. Knowing next to no Portuguese we were timid to go in, as we had quickly learned that, at the mall, an English-speaking store clerk was not a given. People were helpful, but we had a hard time explaining what we needed (in some cases). We found the equivalent of Crate and Barrel (Area). We found the equivalent of Best Buy (Worten). We found cookware, dishware, furniture, and a TV. We watched The Crown to feel a little closer to home, having no American TV options.

We took a few trips around Portugal and fell in love all over again. We started to assimilate. We met some friends. We came home, as needed, because our visa was expiring, and we didn’t have residency yet. COVID hit. We couldn’t return. The place we had started to love was unavailable to us and remained vacant, for almost two years. We waited for our vaccines and then we returned. In the meantime, we began our Portuguese language journey which culminated, earlier this year, in passing our language test required to apply for dual citizenship (we still take lessons as we would like to be as fluent as possible one day).

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Recently, we went out to dinner with friends on the cusp of retirement. Friends pondering their future. Friends with all the same anxieties and excitement we had five years ago. Friends wondering what it will be like to “retire” early, before Social Security and pension or 401k payments start and thinking about cash flow and health insurance. I was jealous and also not.

Our journey wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t overly hard either. Progress is not a straight line. There have been a few downs, but almost entirely ups. When people ask if I miss work, I almost can’t get the word “no” out of my mouth fast enough. When people ask if I’m ever bored, the same. I loved work. Adored it. Maybe too much. And as I reflect on the past five years and the career and life before it, I wouldn’t change a thing.