Good Morning Caracas

OK.

I am here. I am settled. I am unpacked.

I can go to school and the grocery store without having a panic attack. I like my driver, and my housekeeper. I am making friends. I am safe. I can do this for the next three years and survive unscathed. I am in my happy bubble and can stay here for the next few years. I will be unscathed, unharmed, and unchanged.

Chris and I got invited to dinner last weekend. It was a birthday dinner for Chris' boss. Four couples were invited to a restaurant in the Las Mercedes area. One of the couples we know very well, as they live below us and our kids are good friends. The two other couples were golf buddies of the birthday boy and were in their 60's. Chris and I had never met the older couples before.

Our table was outside and the setting was beautiful. We mingled in the courtyard with Procecco and appetizers, making small talk and waiting for the birthday couple to arrive. When the time came for us to be seated, we all slowly walked to the table. We did, as people do, who are being polite but don't know each other very well. We slowly approached the table, trying figure out where we were going to sit. Chris and I gave each other the silent communication of permission to sit apart and as so to keep the other couples together. I sat between Chris' boss and a wonderful lady named S, and across from our other friends. Chris sat next to a woman named M, a real Venezlano grand dame who had married an American years ago and across from E my fabulous new friend (and wife of Chris' boss).

S and I fell into instant friendship and conversation. S grew up in England, and at the age of 17 started University. While there, she met a young Venezuelan man named Carlos and fell head over heels in love. They eloped and moved to Caracas and she has been here for 40 years. She was 60 years old, gorgeous, flamboyant, bilingual and the mother of three engineers, all successful and living in South America. For three hours I sat transfixed and listened to her tell her life's story.

Her parents did not approve of her match with a young South American man, so she did the sensible thing. Run away to Venezuela and get married anyway. She and Carlos came here with very little. They both worked, and were saving for a small apartment. A huge earthquake hit Caracas shortly thereafter and certain parts of town had drops in value - they bought an apartment that was right next to a couple of collapsed buildings - as the price was right. They started having children. Carlos was working for an international company and had put together a deal to open a biscuit (cookie) factory in Venezuela - but the board of directors disapproved of his idea. They decided to open the factory themselves - and the rest is history. She is still making chocolate biscuits for Bimbo here in Caracas. At the age of 40 she was successful, happily married, and raising children. Her husband developed a slowly progressive disease that destroyed his muscle function and took him from active husband and father to vegetable over the next 11 years. She nursed him during that time and continued to help out at the company and raise her children. At the time of his death nine years ago, most of their friends had slowly drifted away and she found herself alone. She took up golf and stayed in Venezuela as it had been her home for 30 years. A few months ago she befriended a widower who she is not dating and very happy with. They are going to England to meet her 87 year old mother in a few months.

As I listened to her, I kept thinking, Wow. She has had quite a life. She is a fighter. She knows how to live.

I am in my little ex-pat bubble and can easily stay here for the next three years - I can comfortably not learn Spanish, make no friends outside of my culture, not travel, yearn for home, work out, play on the internet, and wait out the next three years.

The more I listened to her, the more I kept thinking. Hell No. I am going to live here. Live Big.

Whenever I have made big life changing decisions before I was always "stepping up" in my life. Geology for Medicine, a surgical speciality, private practice for academics, and now what for Venezuela?

I left behind a career - sure I can go back but it will never be the same - for WHAT?? I thought the answer would find me. I thought I would be instantly enriched. I though my path would be clear. Sure, it would be easy to live in the bubble. The bubble was mostly created for our safety and I get that, but the bubble can isolate you from life if you let it. I see it happening around me.

Not me. I am here to LIVE. For safety's sake I have to stay in the bubble, but I can push it, mold it, and let it take me to places I have never been before, or would never have been if I did not make myself. It seems like I have to find life here - outside of my husband, his career, and the kids needs.

Get ready Caracas. Here I come.