Why I left New York for Costa Rica at 55

I didn't leave New York because life got easy. I left because it got impossible. And somewhere between losing my vision, surviving a pandemic, and finally choosing myself — Costa Rica had been calling my name for years. I just needed to be ready to answer.

The Call Came Long Before I Was Ready

Long before the health crisis. Long before the marriage fell apart. Long before the double vision and the hospital and the isolation — I felt it. A pull toward something warmer, slower, more alive. I'd always loved travel. From my days as a travel agent right out of high school, I understood something most people don't discover until much later: the world outside your everyday life has things to teach you that no classroom ever could.

I knew I was never built for the 9-to-5. Whether that's the ADHD woven into how my brain works, or simply knowing what the heart wants — I always felt most alive when I was moving, exploring, connecting. Costa Rica whispered to me for years. I just wasn't free yet.

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When My Body Tried to Tell Me First

I was an MRI and X-ray technologist — someone who understood the human body at a level most people never have to think about. I spent my career helping people see what was happening inside themselves. The irony of what happened next is not lost on me.

Just before COVID changed everything, my Graves' disease — a thyroid autoimmune condition — began attacking my eyes. Thyroid eye disease. The muscles behind my eyes started to swell, pulling my eyeballs in different directions. I began seeing double. Two of everything. The world I'd always navigated with precision suddenly split in half.

And then came the incident that still takes my breath away. I was restocking the MRI room — no patients present. I went to get a stepstool. It had to be non-magnetic, satin finish. But a technician from another department had taken it. What remained looked identical to me. With my vision compromised I could not distinguish the satin finish from the chrome. I grabbed the wrong one. Two steps into the room it happened. In a split second the machine pulled the stepstool — and me with it. I landed on the table. I let go. I laid there in shock not fully understanding what had just occurred. It happened that fast. The machine had to be fully demagnetized to free the stepstool. That process takes two to three days. I think about that moment more than I say. Years later a gentleman on Long Island — the same Long Island I called home — was pulled into an MRI machine and did not survive. He was not even the patient. I think about him often. I think about how easily that could have been someone's story about me. I am still here. I do not take that lightly.

My orbital MRI May 2020- This is what graves disease looks like from the inside.

Wearing my eyepatch on Long Island - Covering one eye just to see one world. This was my daily reality for years."

"I was someone who helped others see what was happening inside their bodies. And nobody could see what was happening inside mine."

— CLAUDIA

The Pandemic. The Choice. The Silence.

COVID arrived and the world I knew collapsed along with my health. The chaos that followed was unlike anything I had witnessed — even inside a medical system I had dedicated my career to. What broke me wasn't the pandemic itself. It was the mandates. The pressure. The forced vaccination policies — not just aimed at me, but extending toward the children I had spent so long trying to protect. My nervous system, already overwhelmed by my own health crisis, could not absorb what I was watching unfold.

I was among the 15% of people who chose not to get vaccinated. That was my personal decision — made with the full weight of my medical background, my understanding of my own autoimmune condition, and the signals my body had been sending me for years. I don't tell this to start a debate. I tell it because it's true, it's mine, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. That choice effectively ended my ability to continue in the career that had defined me for decades.

I had lost faith — not in medicine itself, but in a system that could not see the person standing right in front of it asking for help. I knew what it felt like to be invisible. And I refused to stay that way.

I went on to receive 16 IV infusions of Tepezza — a treatment for thyroid eye disease — plus additional rounds after that. The double vision is still present when I look up or to the horizon. But from straight ahead and downward, I see one world now. One clear, singular, beautiful world. And I am learning to tilt my chin and find it every single day.

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The Marriage. The Silence. The Decision.

There was another kind of invisible I was living with at the same time. A marriage to someone avoidant. Someone who never showed his love — not in words, not in presence, not in the small daily gestures that tell another person: I see you. I choose you. You matter.

I had tried. I had shown up for my family with everything I had — through the health crisis, through the pandemic, through the vision loss, through the career upheaval. I gave and gave from a cup that was never being refilled. My nervous system was overwhelmed. My body was fighting itself. And the person who was supposed to be my partner was simply absent. Not physically. Just gone in every way that counts.

At some point — and I can't tell you exactly when because it wasn't a single moment, it was a slow and quiet knowing — I understood that I could not wait to be taken care of. I had to do it myself. I had always known how. I just had to finally give myself permission.

"If you're going to rebuild yourself from the ground up — you might as well do it somewhere beautiful."

— CLAUDIA

Costa Rica Said Yes

What followed was what I can only describe as a search and rescue mission — for myself. I knew Costa Rica was calling but I needed to find exactly where within it. So I went. I explored. I fell a little in love with each place along the way.

Nosara first — yoga energy, surfers, a kind of intentional wellness community built for people choosing themselves. I loved it. Then Samara — quieter, more intimate, a crescent bay that felt like the world slowing down just for you. I loved that too. Then Arenal — dramatic and volcanic, the kind of landscape that makes you feel small in the best possible way. Each place had its own vibe, its own heartbeat, its own reason to stay.

And then Playa del Coco. And something shifted.

What sold me was the property itself. A private home — not a condo, not a complex, not an HOA telling me what color I could paint my walls. My own space. A house I could paint any color, cover in graffiti if the mood struck me, fill with whatever life I chose to build. Surrounded by banana trees, an avocado tree, a coconut tree, an orange tree. We are putting in a pool this year. And it was close to the airport. Because no matter how far I traveled from my old life, my children were never going to be far from my heart. I needed to know I could reach them. That closeness — even across distance — was non-negotiable.

I arrived. I stayed. I built.

"Standing in front of the mural (by Norman) at Casa Claudia CR - Playas del Coco, Costa Rica. This is where I chose myself."

And I put my guests first — always. Since 2022, Casa Claudia and Casita Claudia have welcomed guests from around the world and earned 182 combined Airbnb reviews between them. Casa Claudia holds a 4.78 star rating across 105 reviews. Casita Claudia carries a 4.82 star rating across 77 reviews and has earned Airbnb's Guest Favorite badge. I say this not to boast but because those numbers represent real people who came here exhausted, overwhelmed, or simply in need of something different — and left feeling like themselves again. That is the whole point. That has always been the whole point.

I started renting out the property — Casa Claudia and Casita Claudia — to people seeking exactly what I had found: a place to slow down, breathe differently, remember who they were before the world told them who to be. I started dancing. Freestyle. No choreography, no rules, no performance. Just movement. And something extraordinary happened — the incontinence I had quietly managed for years began to disappear. My body was healing itself through joy.

Then came pickleball — which became, without exaggeration, physical therapy for my eyes. As a medical professional I understand exactly why: the sport demands constant visual tracking. A ball coming toward you, going away, coming back. Over and over. That forced function of following the arc began training my eye muscles to move in ways they had forgotten. My depth perception, shattered by three years of double vision, slowly began to return.

And then there is the ocean. The Pacific. The grounding I find walking barefoot on the beach, getting into that water — the salt, the waves, the cold that does not care what happened to you before you arrived. Mother Earth has healing abilities that no prescription can fully replicate. I know this now in my body, not just in my mind.

My body had known what it needed all along. It just needed the space — and the permission — to heal.

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Why I'm Telling You All of This

I'm not sharing this because I have it all figured out. I'm sharing it because I know there is a woman reading this right now who is exactly where I was. Maybe her body is trying to tell her something. Maybe her nervous system is overwhelmed. Maybe she is giving everything to everyone and running on empty. Maybe she has felt a pull — toward something warmer, something freer, something more fully herself — and she keeps talking herself out of it.

I want her to know: the pull is real. The call is worth answering. And if she needs a soft place to land while she figures out what comes next — I have banana trees, hammocks, a screened patio with a disco ball, and a belief that freestyle dance can change a woman's life.

Because it changed mine. 🌴

"The Pacific Ocean , Ocotal, Costa Rica. This is what freedom feels like."

Come to where I live.

Casa & Casita Claudia — Playa del Coco, Costa Rica. 300 meters from the beach. Built for women who are ready to begin again.

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About Claudia

Claudia is a former MRI/X-ray technologist, travel lover, freestyle dance educator, and the founder of ConfiDance — a women's empowerment movement rooted in joyful movement. She lives full-time in Playa del Coco, Costa Rica where she hosts women's retreats and rents out Casa & Casita Claudia. Follow her on TikTok @confidance.claudia