I’ve had the idea to start a blog for ages. With every life event, I would think, “this is the perfect opportunity.” First kid, second kid, rare medical diagnosis, kid having multiple surgeries, etc. There was always a reason to write, and share my experience, but I never got around to publishing it.
Then one day in early 2018, my husband sent me a text from work,
“..got asked if I would move to Europe to work on the European/Middle eastern market! Let’s chat when I get home.”
I’m paraphrasing. I doubt he used an exclamation point, because he’s a dude and dudes don’t express emotion in texts as women do, but I could tell, he was excited. And although we were about to embark on a very mature and by-the-book decision making process of making lists, weighing pros and cons, listening to each others (err him listening to my) reservations, I could tell by this one text that this was going to happen. I could use the standard, change resisting gut reaction to dig my heals in, or I could jump on board like I’ve done three times before and recognize this incredible opportunity – both for his career, and for us as a family- and take the reigns as move coordinator. My husband Matt is driven, successful at what he does, a risk taker, and the quality I admire most about him: an adventure seeker. I knew all along that as scary as this sounded, I wanted this adventure as much as he did.
In our nine years together, we had done three previous company orchestrated moves together for Matt’s job: Florida, Minneapolis, and Chicago. We knew the process, we embraced the change each time, and even discussed early on (before we got married) if we would consider an oversees move if the opportunity presented itself. We both agreed on it, under the condition that if we had children, they were young enough to transition easily to a new routine, new country, and new friends. At this point, our boys were 3 1/2 and just barely a year old. It was like the universe knew our parameters, and served us this opportunity at the perfect time. Funny how life works, isn’t it?
Matt accepted the offer. We told our family, who could not have been more supportive and excited for us (and him) while simultaneously hiding the pain of an inevitable long distance good-bye. We took a trip to London to do some aggressive house-hunting and found the perfect home and location for our new life to begin: a family oriented Borough on the Thames river, close to public transit, an international airport, with parks and top rated schools all around us. We were saying goodbye to our quaint suburb and amazing neighbors back in Chicago, but embarking on a new, fast paced, exciting life in the city, something we both secretly missed from our pre-suburban life.
Uptown Girl | Suburban World 