Relocation. Relocation. Relocation

Another Start

I am confident I have found my place… Wait, I have said that before about almost every place… I am hopeful I have? Feels stronger than that. Cautiously optimistic? Nah, too buzzword.

I am happy I have landed in the city of Málaga. That covers it.

Going from Charleston, South Carolina (so pretty), where I lived about 12 years in 3 different places, back to Europe was not easy. Have you ever tried selling a property at the same time as buying one overseas? Zero stars, do not recommend. I say property and make it sound grandiose. I swapped a little townhouse I affectionately christened the shoe box for half the size of that place: a flat in, I am going to lie and say, Seville. In reality it was a spanking new suburb about a 20-minute drive from downtown, or a 90-minute crusade on public transport. I did not have a car. Why the boonies, you may ask? The only way I could figure out to buy something from afar, with a 9-month window to move, was new construction.

Seville is gorgeous, the people are absolutely lovely, fun, loud, in love with life, social (amongst themselves) and loud. Did I say loud already? They are L O U D. I soon learned it was not my place, nor my people. The simple life, where nothing really changes and things are done in the exact same way they have always been done, "because why change it (or question it) if that is the way it has always been", is not my cup of tea. I like to know the why of things, look for alternatives, ask bigger questions. When things have been laid out for you, generation after generation, and you have a happy life because you don't question it, I believe it narrows the scope. If all I want to do is what I have always known, where is the challenge?

 In sum, I apparently do not want a simple happy life. Despite all my complaining, it seems I intentionally like things to be complex, and for life to keep me on my toes. So after 8 months, having paid an armed-robbery, brutal-assault amount of taxes, and declared to everybody and their mother that "Seville is the place for me", I decided to move. I felt foolish and ashamed. The flat was lovely, the neighbourhood a great investment, especially if you were 30, newly wed/hitched, Andalusian (gosh, they really are fun people, the outdoor parties they would throw) and planning to have a family. I am none of those things, not even one. So I decided to swallow my pride, shroud myself in secrecy and mystery, and put my flat up for sale. I told nobody.

I saw no point in spending years hoping for a hood to flourish and get more equity. What if these are my last "good" years? What if I become ill, break a leg, lose my mind?! Living in the boonies, in the sweltering Sevillian summer, I would be found desiccated, mummified. It got dramatic.

I moved to Málaga.

I love it here.

I step out of my (even smaller) flat and there is a bustling world at my door with a thousand fun things I choose not to do at the moment, but they are there, and I'll be ready to engage.

We get to an age in which decisions might be scarier, the "I'm too old for this" creeps up. But precisely because we have fewer years ahead of us than those we have lived, we must be bolder and braver. My back hurts. I never thought I would be assembling IKEA furniture at this stage in my life and climbing 4 flights of stairs daily, but, you know what? The joy of having dared go after the life I want makes it all worth it.

I feel invincible.