Living My Dash

How did I get to be living a part-time life on the beautiful Caribbean island of St. John in the USVI, might be your first question.

Well, my oldest daughter moved to St. John back in 2012 to “make some good money“ in the restaurant business and eventually helped co-manage an upscale restaurant, Waterfront Bistro (no longer there after Hurricane Irma😢….that’s a story for a future blog)

Of course, I started visiting her immediately after she sent me pictures of the beautiful Virgin Islands, a place I had to look up on a map since I really didn’t know much about this amazing spot in the Caribbean (Hence, why I started this blog since there are probably many people who would like to know more about this U.S. territory). Once I experienced the utter beauty of this place, I knew I had to figure out a way to live here at least part-time.

As a single dental hygienist with grown children and working in community health, I wasn’t sure how to make this happen. I met with the ONLY dentist on St. John and asked if he would be interested in having me join his staff whenever I was on island. Being the laid-back dentist he is (which later I would find out pretty much everyone is laid-back on island) said, “Sure! All you need to do is get your V.I. dental hygiene license and let me know!” I was thrilled, yet I knew I could not live full-time on island with 2 other daughters, a son, plus parents in their 90’s back home. I would miss them too much and my parents needed help. But I was determined to make it work.

The next thing that helped me make my dream come true is the ‘little miracle’ which happened at my community health clinic annual conference. We had a guest speaker whose topic was “Living Your Dash”. In other words, how are you going to live your life, the dash between your birthdate and your death date on your tombstone? Everyone has an end date and after the conference our CEO sent an email to everyone asking their thoughts regarding this topic. I took the opening and suggested a plan to work in the Virgin Islands during the winter and then return for spring, summer and fall. I was planning to go part-time, anyway, so they could hire a full-time hygienist to replace me and when I would come back, I could do catch-up since community health is always overwhelmed with need for patient care.

I held my breath while administration and the board decided my fate. When they agreed to let me go, it was with the understanding I would have to be willing to go to any clinic within our healthcare system which might not necessarily be my usual five minute drive to work. My answer: “THANK YOU!!!!”

So that began my journey of applying for my VI dental hygiene license. That took 9 months since I found out it is “normal” for the licensing department to lose ALL of your documents and copies of your personal information 🤪

Then putting my existing home up for rent, short-term, finding an ‘affordable’ rental on St. John and possibly a vehicle.

This is a continuing story for my next blog. The craziness of the rental world and adjusting to island life, donkeys and goats and peacocks….oh my!