Over the weekend I went to Pensacola for work on my way to my new home in Copenhagen, Denmark. Everyone is so confused about where I live now… Even I’m confused about where I live now. I woke up and the sky was a murky grey, the grass a perfect shade of kelly green, birds chirping happily as they pluck various insects from the bushes… I live in Denmark now.
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The Grand Adventure Begins
Well… the time I was wishing away has finally come to an end. Tomorrow we’re on the plane and we’re on our way to Denmark for two years.
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Scorched earth from a fire in Central California... This is how I feel right now.
Cupcakes Make it Better
So… Advice at this point is almost futile since, as it turns out, there’s yet another 5000 hurdles in front of me for procuring employment and finding a permanent place to reside when I get there. But I thought it would be a good idea to list out what’s happened so far for those of you thinking about becoming an expat:
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There's No Crying
We’ve been married for 8 years today… I think it’s, like, the bronze one or something. I mean, I don’t have anything bronze to give him anyway, what kind of bronze do you get a person? Bronze medal for putting up with me maybe… He would say, “Who would get gold?”
Our marriage has been pretty wonderful, I’m fairly attached to my husband and we’ve grown very close as friends. We’ve gone through a lot together but we’ve also encouraged each other through a lot as well. Every night that we settle into bed with each other is my favorite part of the whole day and I really miss having him next to me… I mean, nothing really beats a tiny toddler’s hand to the face at 3am but Aaron’s sweet embrace is definitely a close second.
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So Long Daddio
Every step I take I do it with two large burdens; my fear of death and my love of life. They are large rocks that make taking leaps and bounds difficult and sometimes slow, but I am strong and capable of leaping anyway most of the time. These burdens are heavy but they are not impossible. I am no Sisyphus in this, I can force myself to the top of the mountain and I will. I have a lot on my side, most notably the people I love.
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Leaving Golden Hill
Sitting on the floor of the room I grew up in, some things never change. The heat that billows up from the garage below, the way you can almost climb out the window and sit on the roof, the way every creak and squeak echoes endlessly throughout the entire house… it’s almost like stepping back in time.
Read MoreIf I can lift it
So I figured out that if I can lift the suitcase, it’s the proper weight, I almost completely max out at lifting more than about 50 pounds… The things you learn when moving your family across the world. I’ve also discovered that my clothes mean a lot more to mean than I expected and that packing a large bottle of French’s mustard isn’t as easy as I was thinking. Ahhh, the joys of travel… Everything is a “mind opening experience” and I just think my mind is so open right now bugs might start flying in.
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Keeping On
I said “goodbye” to my friends today… it wasn’t easy, I hope they didn’t notice how hard it was. A rough start to the day, I was up at dawn to do a sunrise family session in Claremont. Sometimes it feels nice to have so many people clamoring for spots on my quickly dwindling calendar, but sometimes it’s hard to know that each one of these families will most likely move on from me and have another photographer take their photos next year. It’s hard to say goodbye to my clients as well…
From my session this morning <3
Then we came back to our neighborhood and had one last breakfast at Eclipse Chocolate with Will. I want to say that it was an amazing meal and I savored every bite but it’s hard to have a last meal… it’s almost bitter knowing that it’s the last one for a while, what’s the point? That return meal will be 10000 times more delicious than the one from this morning, why did we even bother? Well… I guess if I didn’t have it then I wouldn’t know what I needed to return to. And it was nice to sit and say farewell…
Then we came home and we packed some more… and waited for our little goodbye shindig to start. I felt anxious as the time approached both because I wanted to see everyone and also because I wanted to pull it off like a band aid a little… I mean, it was like 15 minutes in before I started to make secondary and tertiary plans to see people again in the coming weeks. I love my friends… This is why I have so many friends all over, because I’m just never very good at disconnecting or allowing my friendships to fade. They are my extended family. But most of the time, they go… not me. I stay here.
So, I look around my little get together and I see all these people that have blown into my life on the sweet California winds and I find myself seeing the origin of each relationship… this one was a client, this one is my childhood friend, this one and I have some stories (Oh my goodness), this one is my flesh and blood… it’s hard to know that they will be here, living and loving this place without me. My sweet home San Diego.
But… I’m going to go to Copenhagen and I’m going to find a different life there. Probably not a different “me” but definitely a different way of living and a different way of being. I’m going to experience their culture and their language, and I’m going to join in and hope I get accepted into the club. It’s going to be colder, a ridiculous amount of expensive, and probably not as diverse as this place I’ve grown up and have learned to love… but it’ll be different and I think it’ll bring me to the path I’ve been trying to get on my whole life. And, if it doesn’t, then I’ll just be me and try something else because, as most of the people at the party know about me already, I never give up.
This isn’t what I thought I would be doing at this point in my life, no way. I always assumed that Aaron would finish school and we would just struggle on from there… and now I’m taking this huge detour. The hardest part is going through everything and throwing it away… knowing it’s not reasonable to keep everything and making the conscience decision to throw it in the trash. The ticket stubs and the stuffed animals, the books and the hodge-pogey gifts… it’s just stuff and I’ll feel better later but, for now, I just want to go to Target and buy 100000 bins and throw nothing away……. I even want to keep the dust. The sentimentality I never really had has grown into this thing I just can’t control, kinda overnight.
So… I have a blog and I have this Facebook thing that I’ve been trying to use again (I hate Facebook) and I will post to them and I will sit here and watch you all from the perfectly designed and a bit darker north. Give me good stuff to keep me occupied while I struggle to create a new community in Denmark. I’m not worried about making new friends or keeping in touch with the old, I guess I just know how long it took me to feel so perfectly at home in my hometown and I’m pretty sure the two years I have in Denmark isn’t going to get me there.
I will miss you <3
