Where?... Why?...

Lately I've been answering two questions a lot, Where? and Why?, mostly relating to our plans for the future.  The conversations often go like this...

       Will ... be attending ... school this fall?
       We are moving out of town so we will be attending a different school.
       Moving?  Where are you going?
       We are moving to Italy.
       Italy.  Wow. 

The expressions vary from enthusiastic, to confused, to envious, to why on earth would you ever want to do that.  The most unique response was, "Well, I can't top that."  I wasn't asking her to.  I think she was surprised that we were doing such an unusual thing.  I don't come across as a particularly interesting or exotic person.  We drive very old cars, we don't take fabulous vacations, my clothes are basic to say the least.  She doesn't know me well.  The truth is we are exactly the type of people who would do this type of thing. 

We have both worked and/or lived overseas and value the experience you gain when you see more of the world in an in depth way.  We are and have been willing to give up some things so that we can have this experience for our family.  Vacation travel is good and fun, but living in a place is a very different experience.  You get to know the place and people well and appreciate the similarities and differences between your old home and your new home.  Your world gets larger.

       Is is for your husband's work?
       No.
       Why are you going?

After several of these conversations I needed a reasonable answer.  The real reason is that we want to and we can, so we are going.  John lived in Rome as a boy for 3 years when his parents got an overseas assignment.  The family had previously lived in France where John was born.  These overseas experiences were transformative and really brought the family together.

I've thought about our friends who have come to our area from other countries for job opportunities, typically in tech companies.  This is the center of the tech world that draws people from around the globe, but we don't work in tech.  We can go.

I tell people that we are going for the adventure.  John really feels that our suburban California life has gotten a little stale.  He wants to go back to the chaos of the European capital he loved as a teenager.  I didn't have the same feeling.  The kids are a little older and things are going well with the family, work, hobbies, art, school etc.  If anything I was enjoying the lack of chaos I felt when the kids were small.  But, perhaps I say that because I knew we had this big adventure coming soon.

We chose this year to go because both of the kids are changing schools.  My Girl is going into middle school and My Boy is starting high school.  We thought that it might be easier to make a big change when there was a smaller change already happening.  I am quite excited about the schools they will be attending.  I think they will thrive there.  I hope.  But more on that at a later time.

       How do you do it?

Well, it has taken a lot of planning and really informed a lot of our life choices for years.  We have taken our jobs and careers in directions where we could make this happen.  I now teach primarily online classes.  In Italy I will work for the same community college and continue teaching online.  I've also applied for an additional online teaching job that will hopefully come through. John has his own accounting business that he has been growing and managing to get it to a place where he can be gone for part of the year.  He will have to come back to California for the spring and fall tax seasons, so we'll have to see how that goes.  That will mean some long separations, but Facetime makes it a little better.

Another key part is that John is an Irish citizen, thanks to his grandmother who was born in Ireland.  Because he is an EU citizen he, and his family, can live in an EU country with very little trouble.  I say that now as we continue to work through the formalities.  Hopefully it will come through OK.

       How long are you staying?

I don't know, two to seven years.  In two years we will have had a real living experience.  In seven years my girl graduates from high school.  I don't see a need to stay longer than that.  That is a big range.  There are a lot of things that will influence how long we stay.  The big one is how well our jobs work with us overseas.  For me it is pretty easy, but I am giving up the option for on-campus classes to fill in the schedule.  For John working more remotely is an unknown thing.  We don't know for sure how well it will work.  There could be family or personal things that come up that call us home.  There could be global things such as dramatic changes in the exchange rates that make it difficult for us to stay.  There are a lot of unknowns, but the future anywhere is unknown, so we go forward anyway.

Because of our new adventures I am going to revive this blog.  There are friends and family who may want to follow along so here we go...