Weekly Newsletter #1: Pinch Me…I’m Dreaming (and moving)

Your one stop newsletter for all things travel, food, and personal growth

I grew up in a small town. Like small small…population of 1,001. My graduating class was 31 students and I had known over 50% of my classmates since elementary school. I am so thankful that I grew up where I did because it is absolutely beautiful and I wouldn’t be who I am now if it wasn’t for growing up there. But now, I’m heading to Italy.

Small Town Girl with Big Dreams

That being said, I always desired to escape. I wanted to see the world. When Myspace came about I started to friend people from other places and was fascinated with their lives.

I always wanted to know about how other people lived and where they lived (I guess that’s probably why I got a PhD in social psychology). I was fascinated with city life and in my senior year I wrote a letter to myself about how I wanted to live in an apartment in New York City with big windows and I wanted to attend fancy parties with cheese. I also wanted to go to UMass Boston (I lived in Idaho).

Turns out that moving across the country is expensive and tuition out of state was just not possible. So I stayed in Idaho. I moved an hour and a half away from my parents to go to BSU and I’ve been in the area now for almost 17 years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I stopped wanting to leave. I started to appreciate the beauty of the area I lived in and realized how blessed I was to live within two hours from literally all my loved ones.

The Chase

That is, the loved ones I am related to. The missing piece was the boy (a man now of course) that I had been chasing off and on from way back when I wanted to move to NYC and go to fancy cheese parties. Truly the only missing piece. Well him and a family of my own of course. The chasing has been steadily going for about 5 years now (or maybe it ended then?). Well at some point, we grew together rather than apart and so… here we are.

Or rather… there we will be? We will be in Italy. In just 3 short months I am packing up and moving across the world with the person who I’ve known for 17 years but whom the universe waited for just the right time for us to truly come together. Through some tragedy we found light and now it’s time to start a life of our own.

The Separation

Words cannot explain how excited I am. My heart is broken about leaving my family but I also realize how blessed I am to have spent the last 35 years of my life in close proximity and luckily there is Facetime and flights. It will be okay (which I constantly have to remind myself about). And now we are moving on because I am not trying to do that crying thing tonight.

I promise it’s true that you can be both so excited and happy about one thing while being heartbroken about another. The feelings come in waves. Today I am riding the excitement wave because PINCH ME… I’M DREAMING. I am moving to freaking Italy. The land or romance, and wine, and pasta.

Is this real?

In 2022 I went to visit my boyfriend when he was in Germany for work. I was only there for a bit over a week but my heart broke when I left. I felt like I belonged in Europe. I nearly cried when I walked down my first cobblestone street there. It felt like I was meant to be there. I didn’t want to come back. But… that was a week, not 4 years.

Leaving the Nest

The hardest thing about this is that I don’t have anyone to talk to with relatable experiences. Most other military wives/significant others have been with their partners for years and all they’ve ever known is being away.

Most 35-year-old women haven’t spent every single Christmas with their parents. And I swear, no aunt loves their nieces and nephews the way that I love mine. People say I will love my own kids more. I simply don’t know how it’s possible.

I am blessed for the life I have lived and the life I am about to live. I am aware. But it doesn’t mean the change isn’t scary. There are soooo many things to worry about (especially as an ADHD queen).

Next Stop…

That being said if you care to stick around and hear about those worries or how I got where I am now. Please do. It’s going to be a wild ride (heck the train to this part of the journey wasn’t smooth). I know it’s going to be worth sharing.

P.S. Don’t judge me if I interrupted myself because well, I do that. Also, I tend to live by the phrase, “short story long.” You’re welcome.

P.S.S. (what does that even stand for?) I have a website with all types of random stuff if you are interested. I bake, run, travel, have a PhD, and love the outdoors.