Portugal

May 30, 2010
Chaves, Portugal

This past year has been the hardest and most complicated of my life. In October, Duarte was asked by North Carolina State University to apply for an Associate Professor position in the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management Department. The idea of leaving our home in State College, PA for a completely new and unknown life sent me into a dizzying spin of confusion and anxiety. Duarte applied with the intention of only exploring other options for us. We decided that if the place and the job didn’t seem right, well, then we wouldn’t have to leave. In the interim between D’s application and the time he was invited to interview (which turned out to be 4 agonizing months), I learned that I had Grave’s Disease - which is an autoimmune disorder that affects my moods, my heart, my hormones, etc. This explained years of anxiety and depression and thus I started working on treating my disease.

In March, everything hit all at once. Duarte interviewed for the position and loved Raleigh and was thrilled with the job. We visited Raleigh as a family and we were all enamored with the small town feel of the big city. It felt like a place where we could be happy and of course the warmer climate was also inviting after a long, cold winter in State College. We zipped back to PA. Duarte accepted the position. The next couple of weeks were a blur of house cleaning, de-cluttering, listing our home for sale, announcing our resignations to our work places and of course searching for a home in Raleigh. It all worked out with our home selling quickly. Finding a home and negotiating a home was a long, tasking process but it is done and we are happy with the home we selected.

It seems impossible that I can sum up such a year in a few sentences. I felt every minute and every second of each decision. I still feel like we have made the right decisions. No regrets. But I am tired. This year took a lot of strength; more than I thought I had.

Now…we are in Portugal and I have never enjoyed time off as much as I’m enjoying my time now. We arrived here on Friday morning with three suitcases filled with clothes. All of our problems – we left behind. Ahhhh… Portugal is beautiful. It smells good, it tastes good, it sounds good. It pleases all of my senses. My kids are happier here then any other place in the world. Duarte and I are strong together now after our year of hardship. Our marriage is solid.

And so I’m letting go of a year of stress. I’ll be drinking, eating, sleeping, laughing and loving life with my family for the next three weeks. A moving truck will arrive in front of our State College home two days after we arrive and thus I’m sure we’ll be jumping into another crazy year of unknowns. And so I choose to live fully in this moment. It is so, so good.