The way we live in the United States is not normal
Why we are buying land in Italy
I don't remember exactly when it happened for me, but the thought arose with surprising clarity: something is deeply wrong with the United States, and I don't want to live here anymore.
When I tell people this, they nod knowingly and say something about the 2016 election. While that critical turning point sped up my timetable, the realization that something fundamental was off in the country of my birth actually began years before that.
When I met Robert (now my husband) in 2015, I became a beneficiary of his love affair with Italy. Though I was well-traveled and had been to Italy a few times, I had never really gotten to know people who lived there. Through many visits and conversations with Robert's friends in Italy, who became my friends, my nascent belief that it might be time to leave the U.S. slowly solidified until it became almost the only thing I could think about.
I began to notice a learned helplessness in the United States, where people don't revolt at the notion of a college education costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wondered why so many people treat it as completely normal that we have GoFundMe campaigns to help people pay for life-saving medical care that their health insurance won't cover.
I watched as people on social media claimed it was "pro-labor" to tip a person for ringing up your order at a food or coffee chain rather than demanding the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) owner of that company pay their employees a living wage (as is the norm in Europe, where tipping is not expected and the owners of the restaurants and stores are typically not among the uber-wealthy).
I realized there are other places in the world (not just Italy) where life isn't about conspicuous consumption and "crushing" and "killing" your life goals, where people aren't drowning in debt just to pay for basic life necessities. There are places where people have free time and where that free time is used to do things they love — not to start a side hustle.
I started to have a dawning awareness that we don't have to live this way.
I also began to notice how calm I felt in Italy for extended periods, even when working from there, so it wasn't due to being on vacation. I could feel my nervous system settle. I noticed how I began to find the famous Italian inefficiency charming. It was a kind of quiet rebuke to the productivity fetish in the United States, where businesses are forever trying to "optimize" and "streamline" to please their shareholders and enrich their CEOs while making life increasingly miserable for their employees.
"It really does change you from the inside out when you get to choose a life that serves you." Therapist Courtney Leak on leaving the US to make Panama her home
One turning point was a dinner with our friends Frances and Ed, who have lived in Italy for half the year for decades. They brought along an American friend who had moved from Brooklyn to Tuscany to open a hotel a decade prior. I asked if she ever considered returning to the United States.
She said no—she would never raise her son in the United States unless they changed the gun laws. She didn't want her child to be slaughtered at school by a lunatic gunman and listen to people chalk it up to the price you pay for “freedom,” as though people in other countries are not free because they can’t own an assault rifle.
Oh, right, this is not normal. We don't have to live like this.
She felt safe in Italy and didn't worry about her child going out to play the way parents in the U.S. do these days. She enjoyed the easy pace of life and connecting with the town's community, which gathered nightly to walk in the town square and casually socialize.
It sounded like a fairy tale.
Another clarifying moment occurred on a flight home from the 2016 New Hampshire primary. I was seated next to a Danish woman, a former mayor who was part of an international contingent observing American democracy in action.
People in Denmark are often ranked the happiest in the world. I asked her if this was true. She said she didn't know if they were the happiest, but that they were happy. She ascribed this to the fact that their basic needs were met. Nobody worried about running out of money for retirement or whether they could attend college or afford health care. Because education was free and life was affordable, people chose careers based on their passions rather than on earning potential. Yes, they paid 50% in taxes but didn't worry about having what they needed. Nobody graduated from college, saddled with the debt of a small nation.
"To show you how much the government thinks about how to serve the people, right now they are debating whether they should pay for women in nursing homes to have their hair done since it is part of their dignity," she told me. Older people are respected and cared for in Denmark in a way they are not in the United States.
Sounds so humane, I thought.
I couldn't imagine what it would be like to not worry about many of the things on her list.