Moving to Portugal!
I’m 55+ from the US and a year ago I moved, by myself, to Portugal without having been here before and without knowing anyone. Sight unseen baby!
People have a lot of words for someone like me: crazy, adventurous and brave are the most common.
It’s been a trip (can you tell I’m a Gen X/er?) in every way possible. I may post some of the insane things that have happened this year but I want to say up front, it was the best thing I have ever done.
But this post is a slight rant, information and an eye roll (or two).
Awhile back a friend tagged me in a post on a facebook where she mentioned I had moved to Portugal. I clicked on the mention to see a photo of another friend of hers in Portugal. My friend had written to the other woman, “where are you in Portugal? My friend Kimberly Anne moved there.” To which the other woman responded, “lucky girl”.
But luck had “almost” nothing to do with it.
I completely understand the phrase and I don’t know this woman so perhaps she meant nothing by it. But it rubs me the wrong way and I’ll tell you why.
The reason I’m living in Portugal has to do with drive and determination. I truly believe that almost anyone can do it. If living in Portugal isn’t your dream, I still firmly believe anyone can live their dream. I wrote an old post on my website explaining why here.
Let’s look at the definition of the word luck from the Cambridge Dictionary. “the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen to you by chance and not as a result of your own efforts or abilities.”
You say someone is lucky when something happens that was out of their control. For example, they find a hundred-dollar bill on the ground, or they win the lottery.
But Americans use the word luck as pejorative without any thought in the matter. You’re doing something that makes them feel bad about themselves because they want to do it but they’re not (for whatever reason). So instead, they feel the need to put you down, shame you and make you feel small in order to make themselves feel better because they haven’t accomplished what you have.
Some disguised phrases to “put you in your place” — which is below the other person no matter how much you’ve worked to get to where you include but are not limited to:
Good for you (tone matters with this one).
Lucky… her, you, him, them.
Oh, that sounds really hard (uttered with sarcasm and often accompanied by an eye-roll).
So, I’ll repeat that luck had “almost” nothing to do with the fact that I now live in Portugal. I worked for the past forty years. I’m still working now. During much of those forty years I worked two full-time jobs.
I worked seven days a week, ten to twelve hours a day. Before deciding to move to Portugal I wanted to experience America and worked even harder for a year and a half to save enough money to buy a camper van and travel around the US for a year.
I did all the research to move to Portugal myself. I didn’t hire anyone to walk me through the process. I didn’t have friends here who helped me. I started from scratch. There are some entities needed for opening a bank account and getting your federal tax ID number and I found those through research. Mistakes were made. I learned after the fact there were easier ways but I was alone, muddling my way through in the dark. This took 100% determination and maybe 2% luck (I did figure it out after all).
The process itself, for me, was tedious and difficult. Partly because I was living in a van without a printer, desk or filing system. Mostly though it was because living in that van, which I wouldn’t go back and change for the world, was the loneliest year of my life.
Most of the people in my life abandoned me when I left California. It’s completely natural but I didn’t know that at the time. These included lifelong friends as well as people I had counted as very close friends. People I visited and spoke to regularly. There are so many “reasons” for this phenomenon.
A few are:
1. Out of sight, out of mind.
2. Having less (or now nothing) in common.
3. The inability to understand or know what to say or how to relate to what I was doing.
4. Jealousy/Envy.
5. Being swallowed up by their own lives and not choosing to put the effort into maintaining a friendship.
Furthermore, in my case, only two of my friends in California, visited me in my apartment when I lived there. And I lived in the San Francisco Bay area for several decades. I had a lot of friends but if I wanted to see them, I always had to go to them. And I did. I made that effort because that’s what friends do. Which is why the pain ran deep when I learned the people who had abandoned me were not real friends.
Living in the van, I went months without cell service or internet, and this lessened my connection with the outside world. But it deepened a personal connection within myself. I worked a lot of the time, and I threw myself into my impending move to Europe.
So really, what does luck have to do with it? Not much. I paid heavily for my move here. I lost most of my friends, even if I tell myself they weren’t “real” friends, it still hurt. So much.
I have made even better friends here in Portugal and finally found the type of community I searched my entire life for. But I didn’t know that would happen when I was in the thickness of despair.
I gave up a beautiful, semi-affordable (for California) rented apartment. I sold my car. I gave away all my belongings except for a tiny amount of clothes and artwork in the smallest, un-full, storage unit. I navigated the paperwork, interview process, packing, moving… all of it — 95% alone.
I moved across the world, to a new country by myself, knowing no one and not speaking the language. I didn’t have a place to live. My hard-worked-for accommodations fell through a week before my flight. I brought my old, sick dog with me. Alone.
Do I consider myself a “lucky girl” of 57 years old? I don’t actually. I consider myself hard working, determined, relentless and motivated. I do have immense gratitude for my life, but I also created this life.
If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have countless hardships. I wouldn’t have endured a life of child abuse. I wouldn’t have a failed 20-year marriage. I wouldn’t have had to work two full-time jobs for forty years… and the list goes on.
I bet you know some people that could be considered “lucky” though. The ones who don’t seem to have to work for the gift’s life “hands them”. I know several people, for example, who have never had to work. They either married someone wealthy or had wealthy parents. These people live in enormous houses with beautiful furniture and belongings. They go out to dinner regularly because they don’t need to cook. They travel to exotic locations. One family I know has full-time, live-in servants. These people could qualify as lucky, but by what standards?
They’ve all given up something. Two women gave up their freedom because their husbands hold all the power. Another two are miserable all the time, no matter what. They can’t shake their misery and rage. Maybe because they’re bored or have nothing to strive for. I don’t know.
I do know that I still can’t truly label them as “lucky girls” though some of their circumstances are.
Regardless, I shouldn’t take their inventory. I certainly don’t want them taking mine.
So no, I’m not lucky, and I would rather refrain from using that word to describe others who have worked hard to get where they are. It’s offensive, derogatory, and far too minimizing.
You too can move to Portugal if you want, or achieve your dreams, whatever they may be, because as I’ve just discussed ad nauseum — it’s not about luck.
