People come and go.  We expect that.  But when a young couple with two small kids leaves the island, it is somehow worse.  Feels symbolic in some kind of way.  Sad, actually.

H&K are the parents leaving.  Today.  Very nice.  Two little daughters.  R-May is just a few months old and A is barely 2…whatever……and, OMIGAWD is she cute!  (Tons of strawberry blond hair and a giant smile.  Full of beans.  She’s breaking hearts already (mine, for sure).  And she likes me.  Calls me grandpa or Santa whichever is her mood for the moment.  I always get a big hug. And then we ‘play’ at nonsense stuff and have goofy conversations for a few minutes before she heads off for something better.  Sounds crazy but I’ll miss her.)

And therein lies the point of this entry: seems islands are for old people.  The dissonance with that thought is that you have to be young to handle the physically tough living on the islands but only the older, more established people can afford to live here.  Island living ain’t cheap or easy.

As a side note: this older-person-being-physical phenomena shows up on the women more than the men.  Both genders are in good shape out here (I am the exception that proves the rule) but a man in good shape in his 60’s is pretty shapeless.  A chunk of muscle, gristle and covered in grizzle.  But the women out here still keep their feminine shape.  I can think of several (I just counted up 7 without trying) older women out here whose figures rival that of much younger athletes or even models.  Of course they age as does everyone but they are so active that they can swap clothes with their older grandchildren.  Really!

City living is harder stress-wise and even more expensive when you really consider the situation but, on a purely physical and cashflow basis, island living is just too much for most younger people. That sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?  But, in the city, you can factor in financing and specialization.  Plus they lay on the ‘systems’.  Financing makes it both easier and more enslaving.  Specialization makes all the numbers bigger – you get more and you pay more.  And the systems – well, we know about the systems, don’t we?  Efficient but dehumanizing in the extreme. 

The reason the young can handle the city: energy.  The reason the old can handle the country: money.  

Even tho the country is a cheaper place in which to live, there is no financing.  Not for everything (gensets, runabouts, tools, solar panels, etc.).  And, where you can finance, you can’t earn a steady enough income to pay it off.  Still, I’ve looked at the picture from both sides and I am convinced country living is a much better deal – if you can afford the entry fee.  It costs less, you work less, you live healthier and everything is better.  But you need to ‘enter’ debt free. 

Financing a rural life just doesn’t work.  And young people just getting started need to mortgage themselves to the hilt as a rule and then run as fast they can to keep up with all the payments.  That is hard enough to do in the city but it is almost impossible in the forests these days.

They have to go.  We know that.  It’s inevitable, I guess.  But sad.  To have the systems like school and day care and Starbucks and convenient shopping, you go to the city and sell yourself into servitude.  To have fresh air, trees, wildlife and physical work, you go to the country but suffer from lack of work and socializing with your peers.  Tough choice when you are old.

Even tougher when you are young.