Three hundred forty-seven was the number on my senior housing letter in Columbia, Missouri. “Estimated wait, six years” was the sentence underneath it.

00:00 — The Number on the Letter
02:04 — Window Four
05:49 — The Rent Slope
09:00 — Three Lists
11:31 — The Line Nobody Can See
14:28 — June and the Four Cookies
16:36 — Seventy-One Plus Six
18:45 — Thirty-One Departures
22:11 — Eleven Seconds
25:08 — Nineteen Steps
30:03 — Two Columns
32:26 — The Fifty-Five-Cent Difference
36:21 — June’s Letter
42:09 — Now Serving Number One

I had spent twenty-six years at window four of a Missouri license office, handing people paper numbers and watching them do the subtraction.

I was sixty-seven when the contract changed hands and I was not kept. After that, Social Security was what I had, and I knew exactly what a number meant when somebody put it in my hand.

My rent reached $1,140 while my check was $1,578.52. A 2.8 percent raise became $31.48 after Medicare took its share.

For two years I kept the housing list alive with nine calls, six update letters, and a folder with tabs. The estimate stayed six years.

Then I opened the steno pad where I had written the destinations of people leaving my counter. The Philippines led the foreign entries with thirty-one names, and one old note said Dumaguete: GENTLE.

I read for six weeks and learned that in Dumaguete, if I had the rent, a door could be mine in the first month. On December 9, 2025, I signed my name and gave the waiting list back.

I left Columbia with two suitcases and $3,140. What I found after trading a locked file for a key over a market is where this story begins.

Footage Attribution: Portions of the video footage used in this production are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. The original footage has been edited, color graded, trimmed, or combined with additional footage, and paired with original narration and storytelling to create a new transformative work. Credit for all original creators is provided below in accordance with the CC BY license.

License Notice: CC BY attribution
Video Title: "Vegetable Basket of Cebu." Philippines. 4K.
Channel Name: Streets & Ambience
Source: "Vegetable Basket of Cebu." Philippines. 4K.
Channel: @streetsambience6054
YouTube License: Creative Commons Attribution

License Notice: CC BY attribution
Video Title: White Beach. Cebu. Philippines.
Channel Name: Streets & Ambience
Source: White Beach. Cebu. Philippines.
Channel: @streetsambience6054
YouTube License: Creative Commons Attribution

*These stories are narrative recreations inspired by common experiences shared by expats and retirees. Names, details, and events may be altered for storytelling purposes.

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#RetireInThePhilippines #Dumaguete #RetireAbroad #SeniorHousing #CostOfLiving #StartingOver #ExpatLife #Philippines

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