12/12 Feliz Aniversário: One Year Ago Today we Left California, and Became Expats
One year ago today, we hopped on a plane, on 12/12/22 and left California for Portugal, officially becoming expats. It’s so wild to think it’s been one whole year when it feels like only yesterday. As I think back on the past year, the only solid ping I received the entire year was to rest and let go.
From the moment we arrived, we put overwhelming pressure on ourselves to go, go go. Get our new business venture going, buy a car, buy a house, do this, do that, set up life. But no matter how hard we worked and fought to get things going, nothing seemed to pan out. It felt as though everything leading up to our move was in full alignment, but the moment we arrived, it seemed like the well of good fortune had dried up. It felt like roadblock after roadblock, and all those roadblocks started piling up and led me to start questioning if this was where we were meant to be. Questioning my intuition, and myself.
I hit a rock bottom in August after discovering that the home we’d been buying for 10 months was illegal, we had to start our house hunt over from scratch. It hit me hard. I had to grieve and let go of what I’d envisioned our lives looking like here. This home was supposed to be our forever home, but it didn’t tick all of our boxes and was riddled with structural issues. Once the rug got pulled out from under me, it took a minute to see that I had to learn to trust that the right home would come along. We both started letting go and tuning into the signs and signals around us. I mean they were pretty bold, but we (and I mean I), didn’t want to see them.
In late fall, things started to shift. We finally said, okay Universe, I get it, we’re not supposed to do anything right now except rest and do what feeds our souls. For my husband, that’s been surfing and for me, that’s been learning dressage and volunteering at the horse stables. When in life have we ever been able to take a year off and do exactly what we love to do and nothing else? Never. And why do we feel so guilty about that?
I think we both come from a society that glorifies the hustle and always being busy for the sake of being busy. That is one of the biggest reasons we left the States, to slow down, and learn to live life differently. But that’s the funny thing, we still had to learn that lesson throughout this past year. We moved to a slower place to slow down, so we can’t be frustrated when things don’t move quickly. The irony is pretty incredible.
In the the past couple of months though, our creative juices have started flowing again. My husband and I both feel like we got the rest we needed (although I wish we had given into it, a long time ago, instead of fighting it), and we’re ready to go.
We have some incredible things up our sleeves, and we cannot wait to share them with you. So stay tuned!
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any questions, please comment below.
And if you don’t already, be sure to follow me on
Pinterest , Instagram and Youtube.
Obrigada!
ICYMI
