Today we are passing the milestone of 139,000 visits to this blog. I thank you all (in some 100 countries) for your continued interest and loyalty.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about things that have to be left behind when they no longer serve us. This can mean different things to different people: friendships, relationships, habits, beliefs, addictions, or even countries.
I've also been looking through a lot of old photos on my hard disk, some of which I hadn't seen or posted for years. The unabashed photo below is one example. It was taken in March of 2014, which is late summer in Uruguay. Because it was the end of summer, and because I had been doing pool maintenance in the buff for more than a year, you see me with maximum tan.
Uruguay is a great little country, and we liked it very much. Still, after six years there, we had to leave it behind. Legally, we could have stayed there for the rest of our lives (the original plan), but things change. A time came when we (especially Sandy) needed better access to healthcare. In that situation, Uruguay was no longer serving us, and we had to leave it behind.
Of course, we left a lot of other things behind, including friends, of which we had many in the expat community. I, in addition, left behind tools and hundreds of books. I basically only kept what could not be replaced.
What I want to suggest is that such a time may be coming, spiritually and psychically, for many of us. It's worth thinking about.
Text and image Copyright © 2021 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
