Ep180 Shipping A Life To Panama

What does it feel like to watch your entire life drive away on pallets headed to Panama? Leslie admits she’s in her feelings, and we laugh through the petty moments while still naming the truth: transitions can sting even when they’re good. 

We talk joy, grief, and the guts it takes to start over abroad. Listen now then tell us, what would you keep? What would you be happy to see go?

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Transcript

Banter And Catching Up

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey Anch. Hey, what's cooking, Les? Hey. Hey. You sound like Johnny Carson. I'm not old enough to know who Johnny Carson is.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Yeah, okay. All right. So so the laughter was because. Because you're just funny. You cracked me up.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

How are you, Polly? I'm doing better, much better after my massage. I'll tell you all about that. Oh, you gotta tell me about that. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

So before we get into, because there's a lot to get into.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Yeah. Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hey guys, I'm Angela, and that's Leslie or Leslie, my best friend of almost 50 years. Next year will be 5-0. We are two free-thinking Black women. Um, we're in our 60s, and we have decided to make joy a really intentional, central part of our lives. And we started this podcast to share our journey with you all and to encourage you to start or continue your journey. Um today we're gonna just be catching up with each other because it's been like a couple of days that I haven't seriously talked to Les. Like we've texted for sure, because that's impossible for us not to do that. Right. But we haven't spoken and it feels like five years. It really feels like five years. Leslie was traveling older than yesterday, and I texted her. I'm like, let me know how you're doing. I miss you.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

And I didn't even respond.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

She didn't respond, but this is it, right? She didn't respond, but I knew that she was suffering because she didn't respond. I knew that just knowing that I missed her and she couldn't immediately say something back to me to let me know she was okay, that she was suffering. So it's okay. That wasn't it actually. Well, it wasn't waiting.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

I'm gonna tell you why I didn't respond. But I was traveling, and if I didn't have this hotel room terrace door closed, you guys would hear the splashing cool waters of the Caribbean Sea in my backdrop because I'm in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands right now at a medical conference. So I walked away from it so that I could come to my people.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

To your people, to your people. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you squeezed this in because we're a little late in recording, because this has been a super, super incredibly busy time, a particularly

Shipping Life To Panama

SPEAKER_00 2:45

busy week for us. But we wanted to come and share some of what's been going on um because it's a lot, and it also is uh just letting you guys know what this joy journey that we're on looks like um when it's not just oh my god, oh no. Um, so shall I start what I was what I was doing this week? Yeah, you can start. Okay, this week was like the marathon week of packing because earlier this week, all of our belongings that we have decided to keep, which was 48 bins, 10 boxes of art, and three other boxes, were packed up driven not by us, but driven down to Florida to the port and then handed over to um the cargo ship, the cargo ship that will be taking our belongings to our new home in Panama. Listen, yes, maybe I can look out the window and see your stuff go by. Maybe you guys know that this is like a two-year, pretty much a two-year um uh planning and um doing reconnaissance and mentally preparing, financially preparing, emotionally preparing for this journey. And I have to tell you, being at this point now where I have not only um on this journey found uh the love of my life, my partner, um, and bringing them along with me for this ride. I'm gonna call it a joy ride. Um for this this this joyful um but very very uh difficult in in a lot of ways, right? Saying goodbye to things, saying goodbye to people, um just putting all of these things into perspective. My sister said, man, you actually move from a spreadsheet to this, to this um manifestation is is huge. It's it's um it has it has been an emotionally taxing uh time. You know, um people have asked, oh, are you excited? Exciting isn't the word right now, right? Um there is that in it, but that's not what is on top. What's on top is oh my god, I'm actually doing this. I'm thinking about you, of course, and how how um fortunately I'm going to be able to see my children one more time to touch them again. It's gonna be kind of a whirlwind New York, LA thing. And um, my son that's in Portland is gonna come and I'm gonna see him in LA with in LA with my other son, and my firstborn is graduating in New York from grad school um before that. So we're gonna make all those stops. But seeing your things kind of drive away. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

And but Ange, you've seen your things drive away several times.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I have.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Yes, you've seen them, they weren't a way away necessarily, but in a way they were. So you moved from, I'll say, the big house. Yes, you know, the big house right in New Jersey to an a big house in the south. Yes, and then you move from the big house in the south and downsized to a smaller place, and you got rid of a lot of stuff then, especially with the kids and this and that. A lot, and now you kept selling off stuff and it got smaller and smaller, and then you were temporarily, you know, in the Midwest. So you've kind of said, you've kind of perfected this transitioning, saying goodbye to my stuff, or I'll see you later.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

I've learned a lot.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

Me, it's gonna be a lot, it's gonna be a lot for me. Yeah, you know, yeah, but I gotta tell you, I'm struggling, and I'm gonna now be honest about why I didn't respond to the I miss you text message. Because I feel a certain kind of way. Oh no, I'm gonna be able to see.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I'm hearing this for the first time. I'm hearing this for the first time.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

I don't know, I'm gonna take this. You know, I'm competitive, right? Uh-huh. We decided that we're going to transition to Panama, but you're leaving me behind because things on my end got in the way. You know, I am still working, you know, then my son got sick and kept me here a little bit and all of that.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah. And I want you to feel what it feels like not to have me at your beck and call. Don't do funny. Don't do it. I ain't responding to you right away. You see what that feels like. You leaving me.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Don't do that. Don't do that. You need to depress.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

You know, if you think you're lonely now.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Not wait until tonight, girl. You're so stupid. What honestly?

SPEAKER_04 8:56

That's um like she's gonna know what Miss Les feels like.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

You see how petty she is?

SPEAKER_04 9:05

I'm seeing how petty as hell, and the fact that you're leaving me, because it's like we haven't lived next to each other in decades.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

In decades. Now you're leaving the country, and it just feels so different.

The Feelings Behind The Move

SPEAKER_03 9:20

It's it's like I'm feeling a certain kind of way.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Oh my gosh. Okay, you're allowed to. You're allowed to, then you gotta get over it. No, but but but I'm gonna say it this way. Okay, okay, okay. I don't I don't mean to be so harsh. But here here's the thing. Um, I'm just the first one. No, that's true. You know what I mean? You're coming, that's true, and don't and I'm I'm just gonna check things out. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 9:46

You're going on the recon.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I'm doing the recon for you.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

You're doing like Caitlin did.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Like, like you go and send forth. Just don't come back saying that there are giants over there that we should not go.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

So listen, you guys don't remember probably because this was early, early on in this podcast. Oh, 2022. Early in the New Testament when yeah, early in the New Testament, early in our podcast, we talked about the fact that we um and primarily there were three of us because there was a larger group, but by the end, there were just three, three women standing where we went through the entire Bible. We read through the entire Bible. That was up. And so that Leslie has at her disposal what what Caleb was. Yeah. That is so funny to me. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm going, I'm going ahead and I'm also think about it this way. I'm also learning so much that I can um use to help you on your journey. Like a lot of the other day, someone reached out to me, um, someone who I met through the Exodus Summit, and and we're friends now. Um I I um I did a house sit at at her house while she was away. And you know, we're we're she's been on our podcast, actually. We'll put a link to her on our podcast. Um and um she reached out because she is looking at um Panama also. Um she's she has her temporary, no, I think she's now a um has a permanent residency in um in Mexico, and she's looking at Panama because she's like, I need options. And because of the configuration of her family, the ages of her children primarily, um, she wanted to have options. Maybe one only one can go to Mexico, but two can go to Panama, whatever it is for her. She reached out and she asked the question about the process. And like within five minutes, she had like 10 answers that were plaguing her because now I know I could find links for her because I've been sending it to people. Um, and she so that is how I now become a source for you. That's true. For you, that's true, bestie. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

Hey, Hayden Bestie, how you do that? Teaching me how to like purge stuff and I am, I am.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

I'm gonna really help you to to do that.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

There's there's she's like, Les, but les you've had that for 30 years. When's the last time you wore it? Why do you need that? What is it for? You have two of them. I've seen two of them, but one may run out. It's 30 years old already, but one may run out. You know, I'm that girl. It's been the event.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

But I have to tell you, I found um one piece of clothing that I clocked as a 30-year piece of clothing because I got it either before I was born or or just after. And it's I still love it and it's still in my closet. Even this kind of um um okay, so you get it. I I I understand it. Yeah, but you can't be too many. Not with everything. Not with everything. And the criteria isn't does it still look good, does it still work for me? Because you haven't stopped bringing things in in the 30 years. You you can't so you can't, you can't, you can't say, and I gotta tell you, Rick is the same way.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

It's like I saw pictures of a sweater that he was wearing recently in a picture with him and Omari as a Omari was a teenager.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Right.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Same sweater.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

I'm like, we got we gotta do something. You can see it in other people, but you can't see it in this you know, that's that's something else. That's something. Yeah,

Purging Keepsakes And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 13:45

it's um it's been tiring, like really tiring, because we we've gotten some people to help us, um, but you still have to lift, um, you know, and we we're getting up there in in age, and so right. We're not after more. Yeah, after the movers came to take the things out of the storage unit, because we just, you know, over the past few weeks have just put everything into a storage unit. My stuff went directly there, and then um we immediately went and got massages like um Himalayan salt massages. They were glorious, they felt like they lasted two hours. Oh my god. And guess what? Good for you. I have to tell you something. I don't think I told you this. Go ahead, boy. So before the massage therapist started, um there were there were two of them. And I asked Steph if I could have if I could choose the one that I wanted, because I felt this connection to one of them.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Um, just you know, in the first the the the minutes um of introductions and names and all of that. And um I think just in in that conversation, we mentioned that we're going to Panama. And um, and so she did her thing, it was amazing, all the things. I wish I could stay there the whole day. So afterwards, I'm saying goodbye, and I said, Oh, you mentioned that you like to um travel. Um, it was a black woman, and I said, Oh, um, you have to um become acquainted with Exodus Summit, because that's where it all started for me, seriously, um, on this journey. And she said, Oh, I'm in Exodus Summit. What she said, I'm in Exodus Summit. And one one was at a botanical gardens in LA, and now this one. Um, but she was on the Facebook group. It's so crazy. She was in the Facebook group and she showed me, you know, it does she's been posting, and I said, Oh, you have to join the um community on Heartbeat because we're coming off of um Facebook, and and she joined there and and did a shout out, and you know, so she's in, she's in, she's in, and so um it's joy again, it's all like comes together. That's right, it comes together, but you know, the parts may be really difficult and may really require a lot of you, but you have to have like this compelling um vision that you want for yourself that moves you forward, and I'm also gonna add find community with my bestie, with my family, with the Exodus Summit community that has helped me to keep moving forward, and that's why I am where I am now. So really, really tired, um, but feeling um excited. And this is how you and I get to meet. This is how I get your attention that we have to record a podcast. This is this is what made you stop ignoring me.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Really? Well, listen, I've also started traveling yesterday at 4 a.m. Okay. Got on a plane, did a connection. I'm down here in beautiful St. Thomas. And um, so I have been busy. And I'm old, I don't know. And I know that's a real reason very late. I don't, you know, but in the in in the back of my mind, I'm being honest, I'm being transparent. You you know how I am. I'm petty as hell sometimes. You know, it's it's like, yeah, I'll show her what not responding right away means. Wow. So the truth, the truth comes out. It wasn't really intentional, but I wanted you to start feeling it, you know, like like I feel because I feel it, you know. Yeah, what like like I mean, you know like it ain't no thing, actually. It ain't no thing. Just go, you know, just go, go. See ya.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Wouldn't want to be if I can't, yes, yes, see if I can. You would you wouldn't want to be no, but less seriously, um uh I I again I this is this is just the start of no, it's true. Do you believe that?

SPEAKER_04 18:18

But that's an intellectual

Massage Relief And Finding Community

SPEAKER_04 18:21

understanding, the emotional understanding is a little bit different. But let me ask you, because we like I said, we haven't lived in the same city in very a long, very long time. Yeah does it feel like it's any different to you? Um, our having 2,000 miles of being apart versus 4,000 miles being apart, you know, does it feel different to you? Because it feels really different to me.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, it it it feels it feels different. I'm not sure if it's because of the distance. I don't think it's that. I think it's because kind of like we'll be under different umbrellas of life type of thing. Like you're you're gonna be um, you know, obviously in the US under some set of circumstances, that society, those politics, um feeling things maybe um uh very differently than I may be feeling them. Um and then um I I I know that a part of this is gonna be worry for me, worrying about all the people that I that I love um back home. Um and also I know that a part of this journey is um is me modeling um what is possible.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

That right there. Yeah, it goes from the head and the mouth to this body and the soul and the actual doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

And that part is really, really important.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah. Yeah. You know, for for everyone, for Mari. You know, it's just yeah, that that these things, it's it's an idea and then you know, a manifestation of the idea. Um, and you know, my those people who are close to me know just about every step of the journey. And so it it's not it, it wasn't magic. Do you know what I mean? It was just making a decision. Exactly. The things that were in the way. Yeah, and you know, you you guys have heard me talk about some of the kind of financial um big albatross things that were on my back. And, you know, because I wanted to do this thing, okay, what's in the way? And then, you know, those things that I had to face that were in the way were were huge. But they're answers. That's kind of the thing. It's like they're they're answers to the biggest obstacles that you might think exist, they're answers to it. And you have to seek them out. That is your that is your role to seek them out, to seek out the answers, right? Um and that's that's that's that's what I did. And um just I I um I think when I saw everything getting wrapped, because what they do is they put like stack of your things on on palettes and then they they they wrap. I'll I'll I'll post some of the pictures. Um they wrap them and then you know they put a tag to identify whose it is with a QR code. And so seeing like everything that I decided to keep. Is now, you know, um in the hands of some other entity and will then meet me again because we're gonna get there, I think maybe um three days um before they actually get to um um Panama and then um they're gonna bring them to the apartment. So it's it's it's a big deal, but it's kind of like it's it's the it's the start of this new chapter,

Family Village And Modeling Possibility

SPEAKER_00 22:40

and I was thinking a lot about my mom because um you know my mom left Cuba, left Jamaica for America, left America for Jamaica, and in the last two cases coming to America and leaving America, she did that on her own. And I was thinking about just you know, like um what it what it took, like like the the emotional fortitude. Um she left us in Jamaica to to come here.

SPEAKER_04 23:26

Yeah, that's not just leaving China. No, it's like or your uh kitchenware, yeah. It's uh it's it's it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

And so um yeah, I I really feel like she's doing a lot of um like giving me a lot of energy, a lot of channeling. Um I've I've really been feeling her, and I um when I was going through my things, I found a ring um of hers, and I've been wearing it. Um but but she made me know that it's possible. You know what I mean? She made me know that it's possible.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

And so um that's yeah, the other thing that as you were speaking, what I thought about the similarity or the through line is that is the importance of having people in your circle that love you and care for you. Mom could not have left you if she did not have safe people in place that she trusted to care for her precious children.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:37

And I believe you could not have anticipated and made real this transition in your life if you didn't have people who you trust and supportive and as you say, backative for you to get everything together to your children or adults, but you know that they're in a country with people who love and care for them.

SPEAKER_05 25:00

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

You know, you know that you're leaving me physically, but but there are there are people that care here and you know so that part is hard.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

You know, but these are these this is these are life's transitions, and this is a beautiful good thing because there are bad transitions, as you know, for sure, you know, we're not um you're not leaving, we're not I'm not planning to go out of lack or you know, necessity. This is a desire that we've a dream that we are fulfilling, and that's a beautiful thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

And I just got something in my eye. That's why I hear that. Yeah. Must be seawater. Must be the so we go.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's um, it's it's all those things. It's it's it's it's hitting. Um, but um, I'm look forward looking forward to seeing you in. Yeah, soon. Nueva York.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Like in a week or so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. I had this weird dream last night. I'm not gonna go into it um fully, but I but I I had a dream that I was coming to New York, and for some that I was supposed to know because I was given an invitation, that my middle son was getting married on the same day that I was gonna be in New York. And I'm like, Oh, is that prophecy? Uh no, but I'm just I'm just I I was just feeling like, what kind of mother are you? You're not gonna make it to your son's wedding, and and is there some way? And what time is the wedding? And I tossed and turned, and why didn't you remember? And why did you book the flight without knowing that is some dream? Oh, it was bad, it was bad, it

Health Equity Reflections From Conference

SPEAKER_00 27:10

was bad. I couldn't get back to sleep.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

The only thing that could have been added to that would be like Leslie knows. Yes, that's right. Because even the in the dream, I'd be like, okay, Aunt, I'm all set. His wedding is this, and you'd be like, wait.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

We have this thing that I call unauthorized whatever, right? Unauthorized visits or unauthorized dinner. Anything. It's it's something that was planned without my knowledge. I'm not gonna say that I would have um disrupted it or objected to me. It's a little deceitful. I don't know. Unauthorized. So so it's not uncommon for Leslie or one of my children to just send a picture and it's her with them, like wherever, her with them, just like what the fuck? Like, when is this unauthorized?

SPEAKER_03 28:04

What like we don't have to include you in our get-together plans.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

What is this? So, yes, she is right. I know that they are going to be um well, well taken care of. There, I tell you, our village is so freaking it's it's amazing. It's amazing, it's deep, it's wide, it's it's hilarious, it's yummy, it's it's hilarious, it's it's so many things. It's so many things. And so, yeah, I know that they're gonna they're gonna be all right. So we are hoping. Yeah, all right, okay. All right, Polly.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

And uh, do you gotta get back to my conference? It's the um regional national medical association, um, which is the uh actually the largest black and people of color physician uh group in the country.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

I'm not even sure if it's worldwide, but um it's really their theme. I'm looking at the program. Um, the new reconstruction, advancing health equity through patients, providers, and policy. And um one of the things I'll just say real quick that it has been very sobering is just looking at um inequities and um some of the strategies that we now have to transition to by virtue of the changes in government and federal policies that are decreasing the number of us going getting into medical school and things like that. So in in while I love being around my colleagues and and seeing us and talking about things and they they just the brilliant minds that are out there, the disparities are huge and designed to be widening. And um, if I were not transitioning out of the medical field, I feel like you know, it's this stirring like, man, I have work to do. Let me do this and this. And it's like, Les, wait. There are younger

Closing And Looking Ahead

SPEAKER_04 30:20

people and other people that you can support in this effort, but you don't have to raise your hand and take the lead anymore. I'm tired, I'm old, you know, and my dream is to lay in a hammock next to my pally in Panama. So there you go.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Oh man, well, enjoy it and um do do the work. I know you'll make connections. I know that you are a mentor um supreme. And uh yeah, I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_04 30:50

Thank you, Pate. All right, this has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. Brooklyn.