My Parents Sold Their House & Left the USA Forever (in their 50s)

what did it feel like to get rid of 90 of your possessions oh my god the endless amounts of crap pouring out that was a spiritual experience seeing how much you accumulate and how much things own you and anchor you what happened i did that i couldn't leave him dirty oh my god all right before we dive into this video i want to provide a little bit of context that helps sort of make this story even more impressive both of my parents are immigrants from argentina and both sides of my family immigrated from argentina to the united states in the 70s and 80s which were largely marked by this dictatorship that resulted in tens of thousands of people getting killed or kidnapped it was called the dirty war if you're curious to learn more about it now i just say that because my parents worked for everything they have and so i definitely do sound a little bit like a fanboy of my own parents right now i just think what they're doing is incredibly courageous so anyway having said that i hope you enjoy all right so i have come to a small town called coimbra in portugal to tell an incredible story a story about how it's never too late in life to follow your dreams meet my mom and dad oh and this is butter oh oh look i like my parents a lot nobody's perfect but i think they've done a pretty damn good job you guys are the real deal and no relationship is perfect either but even after being together for over 30 years somehow they seem like really good friends how do you feel how do you feel in europe yeah great great comment let me loosen up it's kinda um yeah it's great [Laughter] so yes europe is great i don't know what's the question all of us used to live in the outskirts of portland oregon that's the west coast of the united states but since i moved to paris thousands of miles away we haven't had as many chances to see each other as we used to this is something that we've all struggled with quite a bit i'm quite close with my parents and to see them for only a couple of weeks a year feels like not enough so recently they came to see me in europe but this visit was a little different this time around they're here to stay [Music] good looking parents my name is josh your father my name is cecilia and i'm your mom oh oh and this is butter i would say this visit is different because this time we're staying permanent in europe our plan is to live in portugal like you're not retiring not exactly we've got a good foundation financially but we know we have to work still it would be a good idea to work and save up and continue to save up but all that's in question because we don't want to do the old stuff anymore so we're re-figuring out what is what does work look like for each of us and we know what we like what we want to do creatively now we have to like put ourselves on that path and make it happen we're going to portal to see potential houses the plan is to find a place that is half the size of what we used to own with practically no maintenance to be able to just focus on work and then travel you know visit you and your brother it's a romantic idea to drop everything and start fresh and people in their 50s like my parents don't often do that kind of thing i mean they had everything they needed to comfortably finish out their lives in their beautiful home in the pacific northwest and instead they sold that home and aren't looking back so it's inspiring to me but it's also not as simple or clear-cut as it might seem and that's why i wanted to interview them and tell their story what you guys have done is very inspiring to a lot of people i mean you're living a lot of people's dream like a lot of people especially in your age range i think yeah feel stuck they feel or i mean in my age range too but i think as you get more responsibilities and whatnot sometimes what you guys are doing might seem entirely impossible right so a lot of people are inspired by this i could see why now because what we we had the quote-unquote i would say the perfect home settled in paying taxes we had well-paying clients gorgeous gorgeous environment our kids are successful they live in europe and money in the bank i mean what else what else could you want right and there was something lacking i think you have to get fed up enough and realize this is not everything to me i'm willing to go through some pain and it's good that we don't know what the level of pain is and discomfort because if we did if we did in life in anything having kids whatever you wouldn't do half the [ __ ] we do we have a few issues with the apartment this doors and windows keep falling off back in we could not anticipate the problems or challenges right and so and it's good that you don't that's good you don't know and you go for it what happened i did that what how did you do that i put the wrong soap because i don't have laundry soap but i really wanted to wash the towels from the beach i couldn't even [Music] oh my god are you serious oopsie i look that see 50 year olds also make mistakes [Music] so you guys are saying feeling fed up with something can be used to your benefit yeah well that's how it works you can complain all day long and feel stuck and do that rest of your life or you can go look at possibilities and options what are we doing checking out our first property excited to be here don't know what we're looking at but it's the beginning of our exploration which is exciting honestly i think it's the best time of my life right now all the big accomplishments have been checked off the list getting the jobs running the businesses getting married having kids exploring things now it's like okay landing here and i get to do what i want and that it's like i i know better what i want best time of your life i think so yeah there's something about being at this stage in life you know a little bit more who you are it gets to you know it takes a long time to get to know who you are but you have to search for it you have to explore it yeah it doesn't show up it doesn't matter people expect it to show up you got to find you and then you you find your way what did it feel like to get rid of 90 of your possessions disassembling a home that had 30 plus years of collecting oh my god the endless amounts of crap pouring out that was a spiritual experience seeing how much you accumulate and how much things own you and anchor you i mean and it will happen again because we tend to like need things and save it just in case and all that i thought i was free of attachments way more than i used to be except for your box of memories right and i'm like [ __ ] yes it's part of the human process to know and to learn about letting go a little bit to me it was daunting and also exciting i i mean i like challenges like that was it scary to sell your house and leave your life in the united states behind no yes and the fear for me was to not be able to find a home that feels like home i knew the transition is hard there is a good six months of discomfort if not more for me it was just the focus of let's get out of the u.s now this is the plan let's get out of here let's get over there and now where we are i'm beginning to feel like almost two weeks in i need some comforts back yeah when did the idea of leaving the country first pop into your minds probably two to three years ago before the pandemic we were talking about it and i'll tell you you living united states to europe was definitely like a thought excited for you very excited for you we got to go places i want to go places too not being able to have access to you for a year and a half really affected me you were not having a good time being alone and i was very concerned and could not have visit you for even a week nothing portland started getting more and more boring for us right we were getting frustrated the restaurants the places to go but we would go to seattle we would go to vancouver bc we would go to the coast and over and over you can go like what the hell we are not enjoying nearby cities it's the same old as far as places to go and so that that it had to get frustrating enough for us to say okay this is definitely not the area for us something my parents taught me very early on is that travel is incredible for expanding your perspective on the world i'm a huge proponent of this lifestyle if you've been following my stuff for a while then this comes as no surprise but it comes with this whole other side of things that i try to show as well the challenges and dangers of travel things like getting robbed among other things i had my wallet with my id in it stolen a few years ago and once while i was traveling with my parents and my brother in london we got robbed both of my parents lost their passports and it was a nightmare now one thing that most of us don't really think very often about at least me personally is identity theft but when this kind of thing happens like it's a very real risk and digitally this kind of thing has grown like exponentially it's happening so often now on the internet with all the data breaches taking place it feels like half of my friends have had their social media accounts hacked so it's not really a bad idea to think about protecting yourself and that is exactly what aura does who are sponsoring this video it's an all-in-one intelligent safety service that protects you and your family from digital crime it offers things like monitoring your credit identity theft protection and password management they also include a one million dollar identity theft insurance with every single plan one thing i really liked is that they opt you out of data brokers which is like i can't believe that even has to be a thing but it's awesome that there's a service that helps you with that unless you make like a proactive effort on this kind of thing people will take advantage by using and selling your data so if you're interested you can use the link below to sign up for a two-week free trial and see for yourself if any of your data has been part of a data breach you can also go to aura.com nathaniel thank you aura for sponsoring this video it's inspiring for me to witness my parents undergo such a big shift in their lives and not let their age stop them to me it's a reminder that youth is a mindset a way of life not the number of years you've been alive and the timing of this i mean them moving to europe just after i bought my apartment as well as my brother sky also taking a big leap in his life to move to portugal at the same time let's go let's see [Applause] please be informed that your application is cleared and it is time to send in your actual password feels like our whole family is collectively going through a massive transition right now together i could be in portugal in like i don't know a week and a half two weeks something like that just as we leave yeah he got his key today too i know oh my god the timing life really does work in mysterious ways do you feel like you'll ever move back to the united states i feel the smartest people out there are always spreading seeds in different places if something doesn't work out here for now then you move and put your energy somewhere else and more than ever you have to be very dynamic and open to adaptation to opportunities if you can dig them and taking this opportunity is being hard it's not easy to move from one country to another country what do you guys say to people that consider your decision to be or the things that you're saying to be anti-american we are not anti-american no it you can call it any of a number of things it's a preference you deciding something's not working for you anymore i need to move on i need to do something different no offense to that culture those people i think the problem is that there is two types of people people from the world and people that are very patriotic i kind of need to be from different places so it can sound anti-us it can't sound like portland's missing that in the other and you know but it's just for us it is missing those things for us we want those characteristics that are found somewhere else so we've entered a new set of challenges with how people work timeline is different on things people are nice but stuff doesn't get done anywhere as near as fast as in the us it's a trade-off and i'm curious if the portuguese way is the way we're gonna like long-term uh but i'm also happy that there's a lot of europe to explore because maybe it's a nordic country in the future i don't know sky's the limit it's all a canvas and that's how we see it right now would you say that this has been more difficult than you thought moving to another country i would say there was more to it than i was expecting yeah so there is a very secure way of bringing money from united states to europe but that's also very difficult you have no access to your money because there's all these security codes and all the steps you have to take and then the banking person that's supposed to be helping you with that doesn't get back to you it's been a week she's either in vacation or not responding in long term like it feels like it's an in this chain of to-do's you i feel like i cross things off my list and new ones appear i knew that there would be difficulties i just had no idea what they were like you hear them from other people but until you experience them and they're happening to you you really don't know you're surprised of what affects you and what doesn't affect you you're surprised how do you guys feel about being here mix it's a mixed feeling yeah there's a reality of the student life here in coimbra of tourism of doors falling apart of discomfort i really need space i'm like desperate for space you need me to leave i just wherever i go it's like crowded you mean to leave no now it's setting in that we're not home anymore this isn't home it's temporary this is the unromantic piece right of like oh yeah well this is reality when you land at a place right and you're living in it yeah oh wow coimbra my parents tembury home is a gigantic student town and i came on the week of the most intense parting of the year it's swarming with students looks like bugs people on the street they'll throw beer at them or just what yes i read about this okay they get sort of violent i was feeling kind of like oh my god there's no end how am i ever gonna sleep and then there's party there and party here there's party on both sides oh boy yeah on both sides of the aisle what it is a balancing act right between you're talking about fighting against boredom and also right now fighting against discomfort so it is a balance between the two right adventure keeps you young but too much it makes you old yes i'll tell you what i've learned right and it's not easy it's always hard it seems like every time i'm challenged when you put your attention on something and you let things unfold you let things shape up you let things surprise you if you believe in that if you can trust that that will happen as part of the process you will get through it you cannot look at the entire mountain yes to start you have a mission okay i'm going from this country to this country but if you start seeing the entire mountain you freeze you have to look at the next logical thing what's in front of you even though emotionally you're feeling like oh my god it's all falling apart right if what it what that does is it gets the next only thing you can work on address because that's all you can do with your human brain but it also pulls you away from looking at the entire forest my dad actually recently took the leap and created his own youtube channel i'm very proud of him for going for it and the stories he's telling on there are thoughtful and well crafted i'll leave a link to his channel in the description if you want to check it out question question question everything question everything just because everybody else does it doesn't mean it's the right thing it doesn't mean is right for you the job you have where you live you have to revisit is this the life i should continue living or not well mr and mrs drew it has been a pleasure did you want to add something else [Music] just

Channel: Nathaniel Drew

Views: 614,237

Keywords: coimbra, portugal, moving abroad, leaving the us, thoughts on living in the us, culture shock in the us, why I am leaving the us, how I feel about american culture, american abroad, slow travel, how to move abroad, where to move abroad, americans living in Portugal, life in a foreign country, why I love to live abroad, the things I learned from living abroad, expat, foreign language, travel, global, citizen, global citizen, citizenship, living in a foreign country, why I left the US

Id: 4lVKoIvmnEw

Length: 17min 18sec (1038 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 25 2022