Why am I moving to Nicaragua?  I mean, why go anywhere? Why transplant myself into a new country, new language, new culture? Why now?

Let's start with that last one. Why now? It stings to admit that I just observed my 64th birthday, and I'm five days from retirement from the mindset I have cultivated through a series of careers in broadcasting, public relations, fundraising and grant writing. (If you suspect a bell curve to my financial fortunes, you are smarter than I was 20 years ago.) This mindset has had less to do with my personal satisfaction or joy in working than with meeting my responsibilities as a daughter, mother, sibling, friend. I never had asked myself what I wanted to do. I probably didn't know, anyway. I just wanted to fit into the greater scheme of things with whatever skills I brought to the table.

I started shedding that mindset two years ago when I decided to retire. I had only the barest bones of a plan, but I knew I wanted a fresh start. Tackling a complex problem or issue nearly always produces in me the feelings and energy of my younger self, like starting college far from home, with no friends, no familiar signposts to guide me, and the daily struggle to wrest control from external forces. I love the satisfaction that ensues once order has been restored, once mastery of those forces has been achieved. That is what I want from my fresh start. That, and planting myself firmly at the center of the universe.

My two-year plan has helped me gradually regain control of my life. Each weekend found me sorting through boxes I've dragged from house to house since college. I gave myself time to read old letters, revisit clippings and theater programs, and have a last look at reams of papers and written materials I just could not throw away, and then threw it all away.  Then, I made a list of all the chores and fix-its I needed to accomplish before I could put my house on the market. I spent a year remodeling the unused third bedroom and the dreary bathroom, painting the garage, replacing the roof of same, buying new windows, sprucing up the place in a zillion little ways. I sent most of my furniture to auction and gave 90% of my clothes to Goodwill. I have never been so organized, doggedly plowing through the weekends, taking care of the workload one step at a time. Packing up my treasures and the necessities for the new life, vetting a number of shipping options, organizing documents required for the residence visa — I tried to anticipate every imaginable exigency in my bid for control.

Now, as the two-year plan is nearly ready to wrap up, my house is for sale and again, I have had to cede control, this time to the gods of real estate. If burnt offerings would ensure a speedy sale, I would send rapid-fire smoke signals to those gods. All the same, my house is as prepared as I could make it, and the next step—visiting Nicaragua with my son in May to sign a lease and order furniture, apply for my visa, and make a friend at customs—is just around the corner.

Thank you for visiting my journal!

Two years ago, I decided to reboot my life and start over. That is, I gave myself two years to see my only child through university, sift through a small mountain of detritus accumulated over 40+ years of professional and personal junk, work through a long list of repairs needed in order to sell my house, and otherwise shed the life I have only occasionally enjoyed lately.

What seemed then a tall order has today produced a small stack of boxes that contain what is left after many trips to the Goodwill drop-off, after the furniture auction that yielded a wallet fattened by $1,426, untold weekend hours of scraping, sanding, painting, re-carpeting, digging, planting, cleaning, and lots of drinking.

Two years ago, I realized that the reduced circumstances of my longed-for retirement would, with careful budgeting, just about take care of my immediate needs. Hooray! I can keep living! If you call that living. I wanted to travel, paint, write, and enjoy all this lovely, luxuriant time I have craved and coveted. It was clear that I simply could not stay in the States with its high cost of living and still have a life worth living. I decided to go to Nicaragua, a country I knew from a project I had created there a quarter-century ago. I still had friends in Managua, and I felt I could live comfortably there on half my income. A short trip there last year confirmed that Nicaragua is still a country of warm generous people, people of extraordinary ingenuity and endurance, ever hopeful that the country's brightening prospects for economic growth will finally reach full flower.

Gabriel, the aforementioned child, is now poised to begin his first life. I do not know how he really feels about my plans to abandon him to his fate and focus on myself. He says he understands. He shares my wanderlust and he has, after all, a father and stepmother to provide a new home base. I hope the next few years will see the two of us in France, Italy, Botswana, Chile!  He himself is soon due back from Spain, where he has been wrapping up his degree requirements. A quick repack and then, we're off to Nica to find my new digs and settle some details for my planned relo in July.