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Oh, The Things You Will Miss
When moving away.
“You’re so lucky.”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the three-word phrase over the years.
What I think people mean to say is I’m flexible. There’s little to no luck in moving abroad. Frankly, for me, it was a handful of bad decisions, life potholes, and a lack of alternatives that led me down this path. I guess we all have our own definitions.
Based off of my definition, I had the flexibility of moving out of the U.S. because I worked remotely (something I’d done for fifteen years), had no significant other (divorced), no kids (thank god), no home, and nothing else to anchor me in place. Outside of dogs (two at the time, now only one), I had nothing else to plan for when shipping out.
So, yes, I had the flexibility of a double-jointed kid playing Twister.
Flexible or not, I went into the next chapter of my life without many expectations. I had nobody to ask questions of or friends who blazed the trail ahead of me. But that was nothing new. I was the first of my friends to get married. First (only, thus far) to go through a divorce. First to suffer a parent’s death. Hell, the first to move away for college or bury a pet. I don’t wear any of those with some kind of strange badge of courage. It’s just one of those things. All of…
