I Moved Abroad 9 Years Ago Today

9 things I didn’t see coming when I left New York

Nine years ago today, I left the love of my life.

For the second time.

(New York City, of course. ❤️)

The first time I left, I came back. For a number of reasons, one of which being I couldn’t get a job in Italy without a visa and I couldn’t get a visa in Italy without a job. Go figure. The other reason being the fact that sometimes blood is thicker than gelato.

The second time I left, it felt different. Also for a number of reasons. The first one being that I didn’t really know where I was going to end up. I only knew where I was starting.

And the other one being that I was old enough and at a point in my life and my career where I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to jump back in if my life abroad didn’t work out and I needed to come back to New York again.

This move felt heavier. Like more of a gamble. Like the stakes were higher.

And I also was so in love with New York City that even though I could imagine living in all kinds of other places, I couldn’t imagine not living in Manhattan.

It’s hard to leave a place you love.

Leaving New York was like telling the love of my life that I wanted desperately to spend the rest of my life with them, but I also wanted to see what another life might feel like. I’m pretty sure the City was not the least heartbroken by my departure. I was fairly devastated. Like accepting a pack of tissues from a woman who saw me sobbing on the corner of Mulberry and Prince street, devastated.

Except I was also really curious about what was going to happen next.

Nine years later, the one thing that I know is true about my expat life is this: I literally have no idea what is going to happen next.

I also know that moving abroad doesn't require a perfect plan.

That love and loss can co-exist.

And that some of the best parts of life are unexpected.

Here are 9 things I didn’t see coming (in no particular order):

❶ Edinburgh. When my flight took off into the darkness from JFK on June 20, 2016, the destination was Thailand. Not Scotland. Edinburgh was not even on my radar as a destination, which seems like madness to me because it is now one of my favorite places in the world.

Over the past 9 years, I have spent what amounts to about 15 months or so in Scotland and Edinburgh is one of the 4 places on the planet that feels like “home” to me.

Sometimes the place you think you’re headed, is not actually the place you’re headed.

❷ Malnutrition. When I left the US, I was seriously thinking about Cambodia as a final destination based mostly on a week-long trip to Angkor Wat where I fell in love with riding a bicycle through the jungle. Because I know that this should not be the basis of a move across the ocean, I spent a fair bit of time researching all kinds of things about living in Cambodia, including property ownership and a little town on the sea called Sihanoukville.

Unfortunately, I was unable to stomach any of the food on offer in that coastal hotspot for sex tourism (something my research did not reveal) and I started dropping weight fast. And not in a good way. Several weeks in and I had my butt in a chair at a travel agency, booking the next flight out. I lost 3 sizes, the security deposit on my apartment, and a bit of my confidence that I was going to be able to do this “living in another country” thing.

And I learned that you can’t believe everything you research on the internet.

❸ Vietnam. That “next flight out” cost me a whopping $3 (not joking) and was going to Saigon.

I never expected to live in Vietnam.

Or to fall in love with living in Vietnam.

Or to feel like I wanted to cry when I decided I couldn’t live in Vietnam long-term because I was never, ever, ever going to learn the language.

I learned that being able to communicate in the local language is something that is really important to me if I’m going to live somewhere.

❹ Living at the beach. If you would’ve asked me 9 years ago whether I’d ever want to live near the beach, my answer would have been a pretty solid “No.”

I’ve never been a beach person. I'm a city person. I mean … I used to love taking the train out to Long Beach on a Saturday in the summer. And I am not gonna say no to a beach vacation (although I hope there’s a resort with a pool involved). But living at the beach? Not something I ever aspired to.

So nobody is more surprised than me that the places I have most loved calling home in the past 9 years are An Bang Beach in Vietnam and my current home in Figueira da Foz, a city the Portuguese have nicknamed “Rainha das Praias” (Queen of the Beaches).

I love the speed and intensity and hum of a city. But beach life has taught me about paying attention to what the tide brings in and how peaceful it is to just sit for awhile and let the sun warm my bones. It has also taught me the value of a good sunscreen.

❺ My career as a sailboat captain. For a few days, I was co-skippering a catamaran from Koh Samui through the Gulf of Thailand to Bangkok with a complete stranger.

Do I know how to sail? No, I do not know how to sail. But I do know how to steer. And apparently that is all the actual captain of this boat needed to sleep soundly in his bunk for most of the trip.

I know that I did this, but I still cannot believe that I did this.

❻ COVID. I mean, a global pandemic that stopped everyone in the world in their tracks was definitely not something anyone saw coming. And, if the lockdown in New York and New Jersey had lasted another couple of weeks, my life would be completely different.

In order for me to start the residency process in Portugal, I had to attend an interview at the Portuguese Consulate in Newark, New Jersey as part of my application process. Which is why I was in the US when everything shut down. The day before my interview.

I was stuck in New York for 6 months. Luckily I was able to stay in the apartment of a friend who was working in DC and didn’t need her apartment until she returned to New York at the end of August. When August rolled around and the Consulate was still closed? I was like, “Well this is it then. I’m going to need to rent an apartment, which means I’m going to need to sign a lease, which means I’m going to need to just live in New York now.” Which was not a terrible thing since I love New York. But it was the end of living somewhere else.

Until it wasn’t. I hadn’t yet found a place to live when I got an email out of the blue, asking if I could come for my visa interview and a week later, I was on a plane with 3 other people, headed for Lisbon.

I’m not sure why I needed to be in New York for all of those months, but it seems that I was not supposed to be there forever.

❼ Portugal. When I left New York 9 years ago, I did not think I would ever be applying for Portuguese citizenship. And yet, here I am, getting ready to apply for Portuguese citizenship when I hit the official 5 year residency mark in a few months.

I have learned that life is strange and that you can never really know where you’ll end up. Or how you ended up there instead of somewhere else. I am OK with this. I actually kind of like it.

❽ The friendships. When I left New York, I thought that I was probably going to lose touch with everyone. I really did. I am not great at keeping in touch with people, in general—something I don’t like about myself, but is painfully accurate. And so imagine my surprise when I moved all the way across the ocean and a few of my friendships actually became … better. This was unexpected. In the best way.

Sometimes friends are friends forever.

❾ The friendships. I mean, I figured I’d make new friends wherever I ended up. But I did not imagine I’d make friends. When I think of the people I have shared life with these past 9 years, it makes me feel such gratitude. The people I would have missed having in my life if I hadn’t lived in Thailand or Vietnam or Scotland or France or Portugal. If I'd never met them, who would I be today?

I learned that there are people on the other side of the world that you haven’t met yet. People who are going to like you and love you and make your life really wonderful when you find them.

Which is great, because when you choose to leave a place you love, it’s nice to know that wherever you end up, there might be someone new there, waiting to hand you a pack of Kleenex.

And that will be the beginning of what happens next.

Your friend who is currently living in Portugal,
Vivian

PS: Where were you 9 years ago? I’d love to hear what has surprised you most about the things that have happened in your life since then. What did you not see coming?