The Final Countdown

I think I’m just barely recovering from the whirlwind that was our Christmas break. We went to Utah, then Cabo, then back to Utah, then Virginia for Christmas, Georgia for our anniversary, back to Virginia to watch our two nieces, then back to Grenada. Oh, and throw in a few daytrips to DC for good measure. We slept in 7 different beds over a 5 week period. It seems only fitting that this hectic break was the bookend to one of our most hectic years. 2015 was a doozy. Billy and I were in different countries for 88 days in 2015. I can’t tell you how excited I am to never do that again. It's been wonderful to both stay in one place for a full term.

We are now in our last term here in Grenada. We’ll be leaving this place for good at the end of May--2 short months. I’ve been trying my hardest to sabotage Billy’s studying plans because how great would it be if he failed this term and we stayed a little longer? Someone should really put me in the running for world’s best wife. We have a lot of friends out here whose wives will go home for various reasons for a couple of weeks, and they always ask Billy (since I had to be gone so much last year), “how do you do it with her gone, man?” And he always answers,“It’s actually really nice, you’ll love the freedom!”*** In response to this, the other guy usually backs up and washes his hands of being involved with our dysfunctional relationship.

***Billy wants me to point out that he never actually said this and I'm exaggerating. When I'm gone, he really does miss me, even if he does get better grades.

Most of the other wives out here wake up early to cook breakfast and pack their husband a lunch, and have a hot dinner made every night, so it really would be hard to survive without them. I’m trying to figure out how to get myself a wife like that. My philosophy in wifery is that popular saying--“If you can make a man some toast, you’ll feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to toast, you’ll feed him for a lifetime.” I make some damn good toast, but every once in a while, I’ll let Billy practice his cooking skills. Or else he’ll probably starve.

In all seriousness, I really have such anxiety about leaving Grenada. The lifestyle here is so much slower and laid back, and I’m really worried about being sucked back into the materialism that had such a strong hold on me in Utah. I was all about accumulating stuff and clothes. And now I want to have as little “stuff” as possible.  Until moving here, I never realized how owning everything that I wanted (instead of what I needed) was really weighing me down. It’s the best how all the wives here show up to a function all sweaty with frizzy hair in gym clothes or a swimsuit, and it’s completely normal.  

And don’t even mention makeup—there’s really no point. Some of us will put some mascara and blush on for church, but then usually regret it after the first hour as we’re dripping with sweat and fanning our armpits. One time, I made the mistake of putting some eyebrow gel on for church and by the end of the meetings, my eyebrows extended down to my cheeks. I don’t even have a blow dryer, flat iron, or curling iron down here. I took them home after our first term. I curled my hair once for Billy’s white coat ceremony, and by the time we walked down to the bus stop—an 8-minute walk—the curls were gone and I was seriously contemplating shaving my head to get the heat off my neck. 

I hope it’s always mind-blowing to me that there are inventions like garbage disposals and dishwashers. And can we talk about how amazing dryers are? We did so much laundry while we were in Virginia, just because we could do more than one load in a day. Billy and I just kept crazily throwing more loads in with big grins on our faces. And our clothes were so soft and smelled so good and they actually fit me! When I went to Utah in October, I weighed myself and realized that I had lost 20 pounds from taking up running. I was shocked. I knew my clothes were all loose on me, but they were always getting looser and more stretched out before that because they were never getting shrunk in the dryer. Why, thank you dear Fitbit, don’t mind if I do.

Reflecting back on these two years, I kind of see this time in my life like a mission (but so much better because I can swim and swear and not have to work or be nice to people). I obviously would not qualify to be a missionary, but what I mean is that no one can understand the experience unless they’ve gone through it too. Whenever I go home to visit, I just want to talk about Grenada and how awesome and sucky it is at the same time—and then I realize that people are just being polite when they listen to me venting about how there wasn’t butter on the island for a few weeks because—newsflash—nobody cares, Tori! It’s kind of like how you try and listen and stay interested when a returned missionary is going on about this one person they taught, but really you don’t care, and you just wish they would move on with their life already. Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, I’m really scared to go back to America and to have this time in our lives only be a fond memory. I’m not ready! I’ll probably have to un-follow all my friends out here because I can see myself getting seriously depressed when they post pictures on the beach or at the pool or hanging out with turtles. And then I’ll have to deal with it by going to Chipotle and Target, but those places can never replace Grenada. Thinking of getting on the plane and knowing that we might not ever return is making me tear up right now. Ideally, we'll return one day to show our kids where we lived and to visit our friends here. But getting out here costs about as much as going to Europe and we've already done almost everything on the island. But, who knows?

It’s so hard to describe the lifestyle out here—I know everyone hates my guts when I complain about how hard it can be, because I live in freaking paradise. And I’m an asshole, so I love rubbing it in people’s faces. But, in reality, I’m not at a resort all day long. I have to actually do normal living things out here. 

Like:

·      Clean bat poop off my porch walls in the blazing heat.

·      Sweep my floor five times a day—except I now own a vacuum that I smuggled into the country which is my most favorite possession in the entire world!

·      Deal with immigration (they make me cry every time) and really bad customer service from every single business here.  Do you remember that “You Had One Job” Buzzfeed list? This one. It would be really funny if it weren’t so applicable to every customer service experience I’ve had here.

·      Grocery shopping with a scooter is a little difficult/giving me scoliosis.

Not to mention:

·      Running the AC is expensive, but luckily our apartment is 600 square feet (if I’m being generous). And we are really rich in love.

·      Having to hang dry all our clothes, and our towels get extra crispy and smell like onions after I use them twice.

·      We can’t leave dishes in the sink or crumbs on the counter or else: ANTS.

·      Mosquito bites are a daily occurrence, but luckily we haven’t gotten dengue or chikingunya or zika YET.

·      Groceries are really expensive because everything is imported.

·      All of our electronics are fried and won’t hold a charge from the crazy electric current here.

·      Our bed is the size of an American full bed—if that.

·      We have pregnant friends that have to leave us because of freaking Zika.

·      My eyebrows are never properly groomed, because the lighting is so bad in our apartment—I’ve even plucked them in the school bathroom before.

·      We don’t get very many channels, and so we’ve actually started to kind of like Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory. So embarrassing. 

·      The stench that my armpits produce out here is unfathomable.

·      People don’t realize that I don’t have a phone number anymore. Sorry to the guy who has my old cell number—I’m just really popular. But you seemed pretty nice when Billy accidentally FaceTimed you. The guy who has Billy's old number, on the other hand, is a douche. When held hostage in a group text about my sister's labor, he did not understand the beauty of dilating cervixes and instead protested that he didn't know why he was in the text. Which my family ignored, because they've come to expect my sarcastic commentary. My bad!

·      Amazon doesn’t ship here.

·      You have to drink your drink at restaurants super fast or else the ice will melt and it will water it down. Good luck trying to find fountain drinks anywhere!

·      I don’t see my husband very often.

But, so as not to be a total downer:

·      We’ve never had a centipede in our apartment.

·      Since we run the AC all the time, we’ve never had a problem with mold.

·      I’m not scared of a terrorist attack out here.

·      Yes our apartment is tiny, but we always have running water, and if it hasn’t rained too much, it even gets pretty hot.

·      We have the best view of sunsets over the water from our porch.

·      Our ghetto scooter has never gone out when we needed it.

·      Washing dishes by hand is a pain, but I read that people who don’t own dishwashers are healthier/less likely to develop allergies because they are allowing more bacteria into their bodies and building their immune system. Yum.

·      Our favorite beach is a 15-minute walk from our house.

·      We got attacked by sand fleas our first month here, so daily mosquito bites seem like nothing in comparison.

·      Our 2 lizard roommates eat most of the bugs.

·      We’ve only lost electricity twice.

·      Thanks to Hola, we can watch Netflix and Hulu all day long. (Although Netflix is getting smarter, and so I just have to put up with Spanish subtitles while watching Anatomia de Grey). 

·     We've had so many friends and family come to see us, with more to come! If we were in Iowa, I don't think we would have any visitors. 

·      I’m not able to work here, which means that I was able to branch out and start my master’s degree in accounting. That probably never would have happened if we were anywhere else. 

·      We’re in major debt, but feel so privileged that someone will even loan us money to live on and to further our education—and the money we get is way more than most people in the world lives off of. Thanks, Obama. But really.

·      We got to see Jurassic World the day before it came out in the US.

·      We live in a time where we can easily talk to and see friends and family back home.

·      Local mangoes and avocados and bananas are amazeballs.

·      When Billy gets some free time, we don’t have to go anywhere for a relaxing vacation, because we live in the Caribbean. We just barely went snorkeling on Billy’s dinner break.

·      Butter melts super fast.

If you got through this whole list, you’re probably thinking, “Tori, didn’t you already say you realize that nobody cares?” Why, yes. Yes I did. I'll miss you, Grenada.