Ilene Springer - The Diary of an American Expatriate: I Came, I Saw, I Panicked

Title Page

THE DIARY OF AN AMERICAN EXPATRIATE

I Came, I Saw, I Panicked

by Ilene Springer

Adapted from the blog An-American-in-Malta.com

Publisher Information

The Diary of an American Expatriate

Published in 2012 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright Ilene Springer

The right of Ilene Springer to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Introduction

This is not a work of fiction. This is a story of the truth. And if you recognize yourself in one of the individuals portrayed here, too bad. You should have thought about this before you were such a barbarian to me. I told you I was a writer. Nevertheless, all names have been changed.

Veni, vidi, vici. They came, they saw, they conquered.

Reported about Julius Caesar and his Roman Legion as they landed in Britain

To my daughters Remy and Brooke

And to Ricky

And to Marc who gave me my daughters

In Loving Memory of:

Babs Weninger

Helen DeYong

Joanna Ferrucci

Frank Sullivan

Backward

At the age of 12, I had my first panic attack on our back porch in Hudson, New York. I felt like something was pulling me toward the edge and would make me jump off. I had no intention of killing myself; it was just this recurring thought and horrible, inescapable feeling that came with it.

Ironically, the panic attack came the day I read aloud a mystery I had been writing in the sixth grade. I was very unpopular as a pre-adolescent, but my classmates loved the book. You know how you remember all the names of your elementary school teachers? My teacher in the sixth grade was Mrs. West. She was fat, mean and smelled--and often humiliated me in front of the class for talking. I hated her. But for some reason, that day, she loved the book and made me read it out loud (it was only about five or six chapters) several times. She actually cancelled the other work we were doing that day and made me read the book.

I came home euphoric from that rare, glorious day in school. And then I went out on the porch and was terrified I was going to jump off.

Over the next few days--when the haunting thoughts wouldnt stop--I told my mother I was scared of something but I didnt know what. She called Dr. Gold, our family doctor who I adored and trusted, and he just said I was high-strung. Basically, he didnt know what it was; no one did back then. At some point, my mother told Mrs. West to stop asking me about the progress on the book. I started associating the panic attack with the book in some way--the stress, fear of success, who knows?

At any rate, I put down that half-written book and never picked it up again.

To think that lonely, terrified girl on the porch would live to middle-age and move from America to another country thousands of miles away is too much to believe even as I sit here in Malta and look back on it.

The anxiety attacks came and went for the next 30 years until I was officially diagnosed with and treated for panic disorder. Although anxiety colored much of my life, I still went to college at the State University of New York at Binghamton, got good grades, got an M.S.W. (Masters in Social Work--a big mistake) at the University of Wisconsin--Madison and married my college sweetheart who became the father of my two daughters, R and B. He was and still is a professional living and working in Boston. Hes remarried. And we get along well, especially when dealing with our daughters.

Although I began working as an MSW in Boston, where we lived for the first 10 years of married life, I started freelance writing after losing one social work job after another due to the economy. In the back of my mind were the panic attacks that started with my first book, but I pushed on and became a successful writer, publishing in major newspapers and magazines including The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal and many other national womens magazines.

But for me, it always is and has been all about the economy. Freelance writing assignments for real magazines dried up as the Internet took its place. I had other jobs for a while, then got laid off from them.

We moved from one area to another, trying to fulfill the American dream of owning our own home. But we got into a lot of financial trouble and in time, our 22-year marriage sadly broke down and we got divorced after being together for 27 years--most of our lives at that point, actually.

Then I was on my own. I had to move from one place to another in Massachusetts as each location became unaffordable. Finally, I had to move to a dinky town in New Hampshire because Massachusetts became too expensive. But I had and made very close friends there in that town.

Along the way, I got involved with a British-German man from Europe (well call him Mr. S) via the Internet in a chat-room for people who love ancient Egypt ). My daughters (R and B) grew up and commuted between amicably divorced parents, they graduated college, got master degrees and found jobs and boyfriends away from their mother.

Then the final blow hit me while I was living in Dover, New Hampshire: health insurance at $900/ month when I turned 55. As Americans are all too aware, if you lose your job, you lose your health insurance. And I was self-employed at the time.

So how did it all start--the idea to leave the US and move to Malta? I had never been an avid traveler. My former husband and I went to Paris, London and Israel one or two times. I lived my whole live in the Northeast--NewYork State, Massachusetts and finally, New Hampshire. I only saw a few more states--California, New Mexico, Florida and Wisconsin where I went for my Masters degree. So its not like I has been forever dreaming of living abroad. But one day it happened.

Heres what you must know about the entries in this diary. Ive marked each event occurring before or during Malta in terms of anxiety level and the USD rate of exchange.

Anxiety Level:

Each day, even though I receive treatment which helps control the anxiety, I still rate what my anxiety level is. It can be from 1-3--meaning low anxiety. Anything under 5--good; 5--neutral; 6--moderate plus; 7 to 8--free-floating anxiety, 9--feeling very scared, having anticipatory thoughts of dread; 10--outright panic attacks.

USD Versus the Euro:

The dollar in relation to the Euro has gotten worse and worse over the last 30 years--not a good thing when you consider moving abroad. Over thirty years ago when I went on my honeymoon to Paris, the US dollar was worth twice as that of the Franc. Now the situation is reversed. The USD is worth only a third of the Euro. Therefore, when I transfer USD to my bank account in Malta, I lose about a third, depending on the days currency exchange rate. For me, the important ratio is the USD in relation to the Euro. For example, a USD rate of .75 means that for every USD you would only get about 75 cents. (Its actually more complicated than that, but thats the basic, not very pretty picture.)

June 18th, 2005, Malta

I Have a Dream

Anxiety Level: 2

USD .75

It was just an ordinary day in the square of Valletta--the capital of Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and north of Tunisia. A troupe of folk dancers from Greece, Italy, Ireland and Poland pranced down Republic Street to entertain lunch-goers. This was not something that happened in Hudson, New York, or Boston or Dover, New Hampshire. It was this day, several summers ago, that I fell in love with Malta. Mr. S and I were there on vacation. And I decided I wanted to live here if I got the chance.