I left the United States of America back in 1991.

I took an opportunity to play drums in a band in New Zealand.  It was to be fronted by a kiwi classmate of mine.  We were classmates in L.A. and we were never good friends, just friendly acquaintances with a mutual respect for each other’s musical abilities.  Anyway, when he was back home putting a band together, he remembered me and invited me down to Kiwiville to play drums for his band.  I took the opportunity and I never regretted it.

I’m telling you this not because it’s an interesting story (although it clearly is) but rather to point out that you just never know what’s going to happen.

I hear all the time about people (often rich and/or famous people, but not always) saying they will leave the country if this politician or that administration comes to power, or similar things of that nature.  But it almost never happens.  I wasn’t quite the same.  I had wanted to leave the U.S. for a long time at that point, but I was from a relatively poor family.  I had no dosh, certainly no idea where I would go or what I would do if I left my country.  I was different in that, my wish wasn’t motivated politically as much as it was culturally.  I simply never felt as though I belonged there.  I wasn’t represented by the Democrats, the Republicans, or any other party or representative,  I wasn’t poor enough to get grants for college, not rich enough to pay for it, and not daft enough to take out loans for it.  I didn’t qualify for tax breaks, and on and on.  I didn’t fit in anyone’s boxes.

If you hear yourself in this, I want you to think for a minute.  When I left the country, I was already 26 years old and had never been anywhere, other than a couple of day trips across the border to Tijuana, and that simply because I lived so close to the border in southern California. I wasn’t happy or proud not to fit into any of the boxes.  I desperately wished that I did.

My point is, leaving the country really was for me.  You can do the math – I’m now 57 years old, and I’m still an expat.  I’m still skint, too.

In the end, the band I went to New Zealand to play with ended up not happening.  The guitarist ended up leaving me in his house and going on holiday with his missus and some people he had told about me came by to rescue me from god knows what I would have done otherwise.  They took me to meet more people and make friends and I ended up working as a musician with other people and I lived there for a couple of years.

I learned that being an expat was very much for me.  I still didn’t fit into any boxes, but I was no longer expected to.  I was a foreigner.  An alien.  I was a legal alien, though that wasn’t always to be, but I would remain an alien to this day.  No one expected me to meet their expectations of what a proper citizen was supposed to be, to do.

I have always liked that, and to a greater or lesser degree, I have remained skit.  I have no complaints about that.  This is what this blog is about.