I Like to Be Here When I Can
I adore Denver. Its access to seemingly endless choices for outdoor adventure, the amount of “hippie approved” bands that make sure to play here, the 300+ days of annual sunshine. What’s not to love, especially in comparison to the other addresses that have graced my driver’s license.
Before moving to Colorado, I uprooted my life about every two years in an attempt to find home for the adult version of me, bouncing between my hometown in Northeast PA and Seoul, South Korea for six years and experimenting with a brief sojourn in Las Vegas. In each place, something just wasn’t working. At least not enough for me to be satisfied with sticking around permanently.
If you’ve read Second Set Chances (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for (I kid)), you know that, to me, “home” is more “I’m surrounded by my loved ones and absolutely and unconditionally love myself (FINALLY),” than “look at this big, gorgeous house I live in.” Ten years of living in Colorado, there’s no doubt I’ve found that here. I have the most beautiful community of friends, met and cultivated through mutual appreciations of music or animals or the outdoors or food or…you get the picture. I doubt I’ll ever have a community as connected as my Denver phamily.
And yet, despite all of this, by summer’s end, we’ll be bidding Colorado farewell. Mesh, Huey Lewis, and I are moving to Abu Dhabi.
But why would we leave home?
Like so much of life, our reason is layered. The biggest one, for me, is middle age complacency. Teaching hasn’t ignited much passion for me in recent years and my almost six year pursuit in becoming a published author has been achieved (YAY goals!). My goalposts have shifted; I want to keep evolving. So, what’s next? My plan is to keep writing and hopefully, publishing more books, this time with an agent and a big 5 publishing contract. But, I’d love to pursue this within the pressure of a new challenge. Gotta love the growth that happens within some discomfort.
Post-college, Mesh also moved repeatedly, though his frequent shuffling is work related. Being anchored in one place for a decade (!) has both of us itchy for a new adventure. And with his career in oil and gas, the chance of a Texas or Oklahoma relocation has served as an annual threat. When I moved cross country in 2013, the desolate flat lands of Oklahoma filled me with a depressing foreboding. No thank you! And neither of us are strangers to expat life, so when the Abu Dhabi opportunity presented itself, there was no need for a lengthy discussion. Mesh seized it!
The constant contradiction in the human condition, I am simultaneously stoked and devastated for this move. Obsessed with Indiana Jones as a young child, I always wanted a life filled with excitement and adventure. Combine that with my lifelong bookworm ways, reading about far away lands (I laugh as I think of how exotic California seemed when I read The Babysitters Club) and unfamiliar cultures, and my love and admiration for Anthony Bourdain, opened me up all the possibilities that come with travel. I want to go to all the places and see all the things. Moving to Abu Dhabi is the next fitting piece in my puzzle. But oh, the big feelings that come with leaving my current life behind. While the Emirates is one of the most progressive Muslim countries, I am a loud and strong independent woman, unabashedly pleased with my decision to remain child free. The patriarchal culture of South Korea drove me crazy. How will I manage it in Abu Dhabi? And I love being outside. Will I adapt to 120 degree days? Feel okay with being trapped inside during Middle East summers? To be without my Denver and Phish phamily, and the flight time to see my family just quadrupled. The intense loneliness I experienced while living in Las Vegas worries me that I’ll struggle in Abu Dhabi, but I’m assured by the recent leaning in to my introverted side AND the absolute fact that my situation is completely different.
So yeah, I am a giant mixed bag of emotions, which I think can never be mutually exclusive.
Because I’m a writer, I plan on capturing all the tangibles and intangibles in settling across the world. It would be foolish not to. Follow my blog and social media (Facebook, Instagram, and now, Tik Tok) and stay tuned for what’s sure to be a roller coaster of events and emotions. There’s plenty of short stories to come from this and perhaps, even though I said I’m through writing full length nonfiction, another memoir. However, don’t hold me to that. I’m enjoying the process of writing my first full length fiction manuscript and hopefully, with me writing full time in Abu Dhabi, that will be coming your way a lot sooner than it took to get Second Set Chances out there.
