Since my last post. Which of course makes it hard to know where to start.

I have contemplated staying true to chronology, rewinding to 2022 and filling in the gaps from when I left Portland. Starting with an easy-to-define transition point:

The journey from West coast to East coast.

After weeks of donating or disposing of any item that would not fit in our car (with an exception made for some books shipped back ahead of time – exceptions for books are always acceptable), my mom, Boo and I set off cross-country yet again, this time going West to East and pausing to visit Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

Passing through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, we finally arrived back in New Jersey.

But while I’m going backwards, I could go further back and finally post some half-finished musings on:

Oregon wine country

…my unplanned 9 hours in Seattle…

…and a photo collection titled Signs of Our Times.

Collected from wandering a transformed city in 2021 during the heart of Covid and in the aftermath of the 2020 election; images that feel a world away now.

Or perhaps it’s better not to backtrack to the times before my most recent post, but to select highlights from the last 2 years instead.

Starting with the summer of 2022, just before my move to London.

A family trip to Maine and Rhode Island, long summer days spent outside with the dogs in New Jersey, eating Maryland crabs at my grandmother’s house, and hiking with my dad and Boo in New York state.

Of course, the big break in “chapters” here is my move abroad and the experience of being a student again – graduating with a MSc degree in 2023, a full decade after finishing my Undergraduate degree.

So I could jump to my relocation to London and time at UCL.

(Yes, I selected photos with sunshine. No, that is not representative of my time in the U.K.).

I certainly have to write about one of my most memorable experiences from the last 2 years, 7 months, and 24 days:

The Environment & Sustainable Development class research trip to Tanzania.

From facilitating workshops and conducting interviews in Mwanza’s informal settlements…

… to the luxury world and breathtaking beauty of a Serengeti resort and safari:

My student time and budget stretched just far enough to see plenty of the U.K. throughout the two years I lived in London.

From rainy days on the beaches of Cornwall, to an end-of-degree celebratory roadtrip spent chasing rainbows in northern England, fighting the wind in Scotland, and drinking Guinness in Dublin.

And to allow for a mini solo exploration of Reykjavik on a layover.

I even managed to join my mom on sunshine-seeking trips to Portugal one year, and Rome & Florence the following.

But I’m not sure I can write about any of that without also tackling the sharp curves and unexpected roadblocks encountered in my attempt to start a new career.

I graduated and for a year found myself simultaneously the most qualified and driven I’ve ever been while also working the lowest wage (and “status”) job I’ve had in over a decade, squeezing hours out of my spare time to work for free. For as many beautiful places visited and new bonds forged in the last 2 years, 7 months, and 24 days, there are also many unglamorous and unpleasant experiences to share that turned what seemed like a smart transition and an easy adventure into one of my more challenging chapters.

The exhaustion of 12-hour shifts on my feet followed by weekend volunteering and contract work, the long commutes by bus every day, the months and months of job rejections. The flat falling apart around us with dead rats under the floorboards, leaking sewer pipes, exposed nails on stairs, a terrace wall that collapsed, followed shortly after by a sink that fell out of the kitchen counter. The persistent damp and bleak loneliness of London. Missing my dog. The utter frustration of just trying to claw my way back to where I’d started while holding everything together. All of which led to my decision to pack up yet again and leave London exactly 2 years from when I arrived.

New experiences come with a cost. A financial one, certainly. But also the cost of loneliness, confusion, insecurity, the weight of knowing that people you love are worried about you, and far, far, too many goodbyes.

I often think that I should have picked security and being settled over these new stories. However – try as I might – I can’t seem to regret anything. I wonder about the alternatives, even believe that another decision would have been best. But then I think of the richness of the last years (for better and worse), the new families I made, the amount I grew as a person in intellect, curiosity, and empathy, and – maybe most importantly – the knowledge that I won’t have to wonder what if I had gone back to school, tried for a more meaningful career, given myself the opportunity at a second chance at building my life in the U.K., and I know it was worth it.

My grandmother loves to recite the (apocryphal) Chinese blessing / curse: “May you live in interesting times”. I think the same double-edged implication can be applied to the individual human experience: “May you have an interesting life”.

I don’t have a good reason for returning to this except for a compulsion to document. I was talking to a friend recently about how one of the hardest parts of moving – especially moving home – is that suddenly the other chapters you’ve had feel less real. No one around you was there for those experiences, you don’t have anyone to reminisce with, and your surroundings are so unfamiliarly familiar that you can trick yourself into thinking maybe you never left at all. So, wherever I choose to start, I look forward to having a record of some of the last 2 years, 7 months, and 24 days – if nothing else, as a reminder that it happened.