Last week we found out–due to employment constraints–we have to return to the U.S. six months earlier than we planned. That’s half of what we intended. Half of our lease. Half of our anticipated adventures. Half of our time to rest and reset. No whale season. Zero of the “high season” months, which earn the designation because they’re the coolest and most comfortable. If we’d known we could only stay for six months we would have made… many decisions differently.
Once we confirmed moving back to the States was truly the only path forward, a cascade of decisions immediately demanded attention.
When? We just knew we had to cross the border no later than December 1st.
Where? We knew we needed somewhere I could work from and we could have easy access to Atlanta for logistics. We also knew saving money for a minute would be nice to help us absorb the expense-bloat that comes with any move, especially when we will have only had six months to recover from the last one.
But then where? Where do we want to land? 🤷🏻♀️
As the bounds of the puzzle became clear, it was easier for my brain to activate and start filling in gaps.
In news that will surprise not a one of you, for weeks I’d already been dedicating a huge part of my free time to researching where we might live when we did move back. Real casual-like. I HAD MONTHS BEFORE WE NEEDED TO NARROW DOWN POSSIBILITIES. And yet. Instantly my huge spreadsheet with its location sorting criteria and half-formed assessments transformed from philosophical exercise to real-life relocation guide. Steven and I debated our budget, watched YouTube videos of non-famous people talking about their towns and neighborhoods, nitpicked the priority of different criteria (are year-round farmers’ markets or well-maintained sidewalks more important?), and ruthlessly pared down a list of 21 places to 2 (Oak Park, IL and Nashville, TN are the current finalists based on our needs and constraints; Nyack and Brooklyn, I miss you already, you inaccessible beauties).
Even though these decisions don’t (yet) have any finality to them, they still feel really heavy and anxiety-filled. We were (and are) actively processing the emotions that accompany such huge, unexpected change. So what did we do to lighten the mood and sense of foreboding?
We fought about vacation.
I demanded a Christmas vacation. Not travel, which is usually our preferred mode, but a vacation. I have two short trips planned between now and Christmas, but neither of them count as vacation. My company-wide closure for the holidays will be the first chance I’ll get at enough time off to actually try and decompress.
I imagined 4 days in a hammock where I didn’t have to make a single logistical decision, do not one domestic task, or even think about preparing a meal. Ideally at a tropical resort with constant breezes, bottomless mimosas, and zero-entry beaches.
The boys said no. They were going to have just been forcibly removed from their tropical life, and if they were going to be brought along on a v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n instead of getting to travel, then they wanted snow please and thank you.
So then we spent an unreasonable amount of time searching for snowy resorts. We looked at places all over the U.S., in Canada, and in Europe. Many, many of them were already fully booked over the holidays. Many others wanted $11k for four nights. I kept trying to put Turks & Caicos back in the running, and I kept getting side-eye.
I think this goofy, overly dramatized planning of vacation gave us exactly the right amount of distraction and low-stakes practice we needed to warm up our collective decision making muscles because once my friend Sarah recommended the perfect place for us to holiday in the Berkshires (and Steven resigned himself to yet another long road trip), the rest of the broader plan came together without too much angst.
We’ll share more as we go, and there are plenty of questions yet to answer. For now, we’re grateful for the loving families who are going to host us upon our return and the promise of a white Christmas.