Never Say Your Leaving?

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I’ve heard stories about people being ostracized just for saying they’re thinking of leaving their community. That wasn’t my expectation—but my experience has turned out to be more complicated. I tend to share openly. I even wrote a book about sharing and the gift economy because I genuinely believe life isn’t a zero-sum game. That belief comes from how I see life itself: as one vast, interconnected organism continually branching into endless variation—birds, fish, fungi, humans. What we call evolution. When you see the world this way, someone else’s well-being becomes your own. When others thrive, so do you.

A couple of years ago, I began spending my summers away from the small town where I live. It gets intensely hot here, and like many places, we have a lot of snowbirds. But my absence stirred up questions: “I thought you left?” “I heard you’re moving.” Soon, a few “friends” began to distance themselves. That hurt. I realized that my value to them may have been tied to my visible loyalty to our town. When that shifted, so did the connection.

After the last election, my partner wrote a paper expressing how he felt and posted it online. He shared that he no longer believed he could stay in this country—that the democratic guardrails had failed. Someone in our community even asked to sit down with him and discouraged him from sharing such feelings, worried it might demoralize others or encourage more people to leave. But to me, no one has the right to edit someone else’s truth. What he wrote came from a deep, honest place.

Now I find myself wanting to connect with others who are also considering becoming expats. I want to know who else is asking these same questions. I’d love to pool our resources, share what we’re learning, and support each other through these big life decisions. None of us are sure we’re going anywhere, but why not share the process of teasing out the question, the feelings and the facts? 

I also want to believe that if, after all our research, we choose not to leave the country, our friendships here will remain intact. I know some of my friends are for life—many I’ve known for decades, scattered across the U.S.—they’re solid. But locally, I’m not so sure. I’ve started to question the durability of some of the relationships I’ve built, or even the motives that held them together. It’s also possible that my worry that local friends will disconnect from me emotionally is helping me imagine that this is already happening. 

In short, I mean to share here that this is tender terrain. I admit that I have let early experiences shape how much I now share, and I don’t love admitting that. I intend to push past it. It goes against my nature to hide what’s true for me. I know that I don’t have superficial relationships and would support any friend that is exploring options for themselves even if those options remove them from me. My friendships span space and time. What I’m learning is that the emotional weight of these decisions is real, and the thought of not leaving—and staying in a place where I’ve been made to feel irrelevant—is a lot to hold.


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