Latest / Dots and Dreams / Episode 7: How to Start Over in a New City and Why Routine, Curiosity, Reinvention, and Time Alone Will Be Your First Friends

Transcript

Episode 7: How to Start Over in a New City and Why Routine, Curiosity, Reinvention, and Time Alone Will Be Your First Friends · Dots and Dreams

0:01
SPEAKER_00: The French have this expression, le point de repère.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It's something I've never really known how to translate into English,
0:09
SPEAKER_00: and yet it's literally the thing that has saved me during each and every one
0:15
SPEAKER_00: of my moves.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: It's thanks to this point de repère,
0:18
SPEAKER_00: or what I'd call familiar things,
0:21
SPEAKER_00: that I come back to myself despite changing every single thing around me,
0:27
SPEAKER_00: starting with my location.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Moving requires a certain kind of fear management and reinvention that not even
0:35
SPEAKER_00: a nomad could get used to.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: The shiny Instagram posts or smiles six months into a new city...
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Really hide the internal and difficult work that happens when starting from nothing
0:51
SPEAKER_00: in unfamiliar settings.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: I have moved over 20 times in my adult life.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: A move might be a city, a country, an apartment, or just a building down the street.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: But as I've learned, moving is a big change no matter what shape and form it is in.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And big change is scary, overwhelming, and really lonely.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Every single time I've moved, I've found my way back to myself.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: But how?
1:23
SPEAKER_00: How did I do it so many times?
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Dots and Dreams,
1:29
SPEAKER_00: a podcast about the real vulnerable and my sometimes in the moment stories
1:34
SPEAKER_00: of life transitions.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm Jenny Sidorova and I've been an immigrant, marketer, mother, and serial reinventor.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about what it takes to fall in love with a new place
1:47
SPEAKER_00: and make it your own.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: It's 2010 and I just moved to New York City.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I think Alicia Keys' song came out right around the time I was moving.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: I remember dancing to it in Paris in a nightclub with my best friendiness just before leaving.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Both of us, tears going down our cheeks because neither one of us wanted me to move to New York.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm 26
2:23
SPEAKER_00: and I arrived a little bit bitter because I couldn't stay in Paris.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: I had this dream of staying in Paris after graduate school and it didn't work out.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I got a letter telling me I had three weeks to leave the country
2:35
SPEAKER_00: because my work visa was denied.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't very well see myself going back to where I grew up in San Francisco,
2:43
SPEAKER_00: so I went to New York.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: I just remember feeling very small.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Very, very small, surrounded by noise and tall buildings and wide streets.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: It felt like it was the opposite of Paris in every way possible.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And even though my brain knew how exciting it was and how
3:05
SPEAKER_00: so many people would have loved to switch places with me,
3:09
SPEAKER_00: so many French people would have loved to switch places with me,
3:14
SPEAKER_00: That was not at all what my heart was feeling.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I was just feeling like, why am I here and why didn't my dream work out?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: I spent months unable to really embrace it.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: It took me a really long time to find an apartment I was comfortable with.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: I think most people who move to a place like New York,
3:34
SPEAKER_00: they don't just arrive and live wherever it is they're going to be living.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And moving apartments is definitely one way to feel very unsettled.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: I have a certain ritual every time I'm in a new place.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I put up pictures.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: I have a pillow that I like to put on my bed.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I have these certain...
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Reference points or familiar things that make me feel at home.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Those are those famous points de repaire.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I like to really set everything up in a specific way, even if I'm just staying for two weeks.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: But doing that over and over many times before you find the place
4:16
SPEAKER_00: where you know you can truly unpack is very unsettling,
4:20
SPEAKER_00: especially when you're arriving to a place that is the size and intimidation
4:27
SPEAKER_00: that is New York City.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And I did not arrive completely alone.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: In fact,
4:34
SPEAKER_00: one of my best friends from growing up,
4:37
SPEAKER_00: literally my oldest friend in the world, lives there and still does.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And at the time that I moved,
4:43
SPEAKER_00: I had a very close friend who also was living there,
4:47
SPEAKER_00: who I know from my San Francisco days.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: But there was a certain paradox around it because there was a danger
4:54
SPEAKER_00: of leaning too hard on them and That would prevent me from doing
5:00
SPEAKER_00: the hard work required to build something new.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, gave me enough comfort to feel held.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: To feel like I had A, people to go out with.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: And B, close people who understood me.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: And looking back right now, I can appreciate that so much.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Because it's very rare to move somewhere new the size of New York City.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: I even moved with a job.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: The guy who did my work visa application wrong in Paris agreed to hire me
5:30
SPEAKER_00: in New York on a low entry-level salary for me to build up his business.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: But what he was agreeing to by doing that
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how outgoing or hardworking I might have been at the time,
5:55
SPEAKER_00: nothing prepared me for sitting in a four-walled office
5:58
SPEAKER_00: with no window near Penn Station that I had to rent myself.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: I had to rent this office myself because I was the only employee in New York City
6:28
SPEAKER_00: for this company.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: No one prepared me for the extreme loneliness
6:32
SPEAKER_00: that even those two close friends could not fill during that time.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: So it was extremely difficult and I had no idea how on earth
6:43
SPEAKER_00: a place like New York City was ever going to have a little carved out space
6:48
SPEAKER_00: for little me who would ever feel like home there.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is that feeling replicates itself every single time I move.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: When I moved to San Francisco a few years later at the age of 30,
7:03
SPEAKER_00: I also moved with a closed heart because San Francisco was not my dream.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: France was my dream,
7:09
SPEAKER_00: and to move at the age of 30 after a breakup,
7:13
SPEAKER_00: it just felt like, well, I clearly had it all wrong.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, I was not meant to live in France.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: I had made all these fake rules for myself about how I should be living at the age
7:26
SPEAKER_00: of 30 wherever it is I will live forever.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: But I spent probably my entire 20s obsessed with this idea.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm 42 now,
7:37
SPEAKER_00: and that is just hysterical to think about considering how many times I have moved
7:42
SPEAKER_00: since the age of 30.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: when I moved to San Francisco,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I very much moved with a similar feeling as when I moved to New York in
7:51
SPEAKER_00: that I was dealing with a lot of internal difficulties.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in San Francisco.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I have family, close friends.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: My parents were living there at the time.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: So the fact that I would arrive with a similar loneliness is just so interesting
8:14
SPEAKER_00: to think about how difficult it is to pick up your life and move to a new city,
8:20
SPEAKER_00: even if it is a city that you know.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: What I noticed, though,
8:25
SPEAKER_00: in New York,
8:26
SPEAKER_00: in San Francisco,
8:27
SPEAKER_00: and in all my moves, is that there is a specific recipe that I created for myself.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I was creating it,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: but I probably created it since the first time I moved to France.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And I would apply this recipe to everyone.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Every single new move,
8:45
SPEAKER_00: every new neighborhood,
8:47
SPEAKER_00: every new country,
8:48
SPEAKER_00: every time I would change my surroundings,
8:51
SPEAKER_00: I would apply this certain recipe and it would really get me out of the loneliness
8:56
SPEAKER_00: and out of the difficulty and into optimism and excitement.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: In New York, what really flipped that experience for me wasn't a person and it wasn't a moment.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: It was returning to the things I already loved and applying a certain type
9:14
SPEAKER_00: of curiosity to them in this new place.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It was these familiar moments,
9:21
SPEAKER_00: these reference points that I would come back to that once I learned to do that,
9:27
SPEAKER_00: I knew how to take myself into the excitement
9:31
SPEAKER_00: because there is something really thrilling and exciting about moving somewhere new.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: In New York, that took shape with bagels.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I am a foodie.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: I love food.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: I love planning everything in my day around food,
9:47
SPEAKER_00: knowing that I'm going to eat at a specific location.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: I travel that way.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite things about vacation.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: But I also like living that way.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: So when I got to New York, I was excited about bagels.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And I spent a lot of those early months traveling.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Getting a bagel in the morning at a bodega,
10:11
SPEAKER_00: each neighborhood I lived in,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: I would pick my bodega that I liked the bagels in,
10:16
SPEAKER_00: that they put the right amount of cream cheese on
10:18
SPEAKER_00: because sometimes they put way too much.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: You have to open up your bagel, smear half of it off, close it and then eat it.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to do that because then you got cream cheese everywhere.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: So I would find the bodega and I would get a bagel and I would go sit on some steps.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: I would have my bagel and I would just watch.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: I would watch the people passing.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: I would look up.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: New York City is the kind of place you forget to look up and
10:46
SPEAKER_00: the architecture is actually quite stunning.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I loved sitting on those stairs, eating my bagel and looking up.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And this is pre-smartphone domination era, pre-headphone domination era.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times I'd just be sitting there with my bagel and my And I feel like
11:05
SPEAKER_00: that is something I want to go do right now,
11:08
SPEAKER_00: because right now we'd be sitting there with our phones or with headphones
11:11
SPEAKER_00: or listening to an audio book.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Our society has lost a little bit of connection with those kind of moments
11:18
SPEAKER_00: where you're just being.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: But those moments of being actually bring you familiarity.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's that familiarity and that point de repaire that makes you feel connected to a place.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: At least that was something.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that it was for me.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: I'd also go to art museums in New York because if you're going to live in New York
11:39
SPEAKER_00: and never go to a museum, why live in New York?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And I would always just walk to them because if I had No plans with people and I felt lonely.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, walking kills time and it makes you feel less alone.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: So even living in the Lower East Side but going to the Met,
11:56
SPEAKER_00: which is on the Upper East Side, I would walk.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And sure, it would take me like maybe an hour and a half or two hours.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: But I had nothing but time when I arrived on my weekends that I wasn't working.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I would just go and walk.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: I'd also find free walking tours because there are so many of them in New York.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: And actually,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: they're always run by locals who have lived and often even grown up
12:21
SPEAKER_00: in New York City.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: And those people just have the best stories.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And that is another thing is I would really try to connect to locals.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I did it in Paris and now here I was in New York.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Every city had a version of what I really just loved doing naturally.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Eating, meeting locals, going to art museums, walking.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: It was almost as if my job was to find those things that I loved,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: to find the version of those things in each city I would be moving to.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: The material things like the apartment, a job,
12:58
SPEAKER_00: decorating the apartment— They might help in the short and immediate term,
13:03
SPEAKER_00: but they don't actually really help create the feeling of home
13:06
SPEAKER_00: because once they're done, you're still there with yourself.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: So I'd put up all my pictures and that was kind of one of my recipes.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Those pictures bring comfort when you've built a life,
13:17
SPEAKER_00: but they can't be the thing that gives you comfort when you're in a new place
13:20
SPEAKER_00: and have no comfort otherwise.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: So the four things that really helped me on every single move are routine,
13:39
SPEAKER_00: curiosity, reinvention and time alone.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to go into all of them.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: I think that they are a recipe that could really help.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: I just want to reiterate how normal it is and share
13:52
SPEAKER_00: that I was terrified every single time I had to pack my bags and move somewhere new.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: So I want to share these four things that have really helped me.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Routine is really important,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: and part of that I think has to do with my personality,
14:19
SPEAKER_00: but part of it has to do with the fact that humans feel better when they have
14:25
SPEAKER_00: a routine and something they can connect to.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Even freelancers or people who work for themselves who don't have
14:32
SPEAKER_00: a fixed schedule often make a fixed schedule for themselves
14:36
SPEAKER_00: where they'll go everywhere So, I think that's what I'm saying.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: It does help to have a job because I have experiences moving with and without work.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And when you move with a job,
15:07
SPEAKER_00: it does in some ways make it easier because you have somewhere to physically go.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: You have a certain routine that starts when you start your job.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Building consistency outside of work was what was really key for me.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of became my Saturday morning bagel on a stoop moment.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And then finding a ritual before finding friends also became really important to me
15:34
SPEAKER_00: because it gave me something to kind of come back to.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: So, for example,
15:38
SPEAKER_00: when I moved to New York,
15:40
SPEAKER_00: what that looked like was every Wednesday after work,
15:44
SPEAKER_00: I would go to this bar called Swift.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: It was maybe two blocks from where I lived.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: And when I made friends, I'd actually bring friends to that bar.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And when I'd have friends visit from France or San Francisco, I'd bring them to that bar.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And then when I met Max, I took him to this bar.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of became my place.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, it became my place before I even had community.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And so it became a point de repaire.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Curiosity is another really important tool because I would apply it to what I already love.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I was already really curious about art, food, culture, history.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: These are just things that I genuinely love.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: So living in a place like New York, I had so much at my disposal.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: For example,
16:33
SPEAKER_00: I went to a lot of the art museums,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: the classic ones, but my favorite was the Frick Collection.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: It is the epitome of curiosity.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Everything I love because it's somebody's personal collection in a home where they
16:46
SPEAKER_00: and their family used to live.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: It feels like a very boutique experience, even though it's obviously a big, very popular museum.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: But it's not half as big as the Med.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I actually got a year subscribership.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I would go to concerts there.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: I would go there all the time by myself,
17:05
SPEAKER_00: sometimes with friends,
17:06
SPEAKER_00: but oftentimes by myself,
17:08
SPEAKER_00: because art is one of those things that you can absolutely feel comfortable doing
17:13
SPEAKER_00: on your own.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: No one's going to judge you when you're standing looking at a painting.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And I did the same thing with food.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: I would try so many different places.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a huge budget, so I would also cook a lot at home.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: But even when it comes to cooking,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I discovered Russ and Daughters, which now is very mainstream.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: But I discovered Russ and Daughters when it was just the Deli shop on Houston Street
17:40
SPEAKER_00: that has been open since 1911.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: That place is still a point de repair for me.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: When I go to New York, I have to go to Russ and Daughters.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: So curiosity is kind of how I fall in love with a place before it even loves me back.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It's how I discover things.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: It's really like find the thing that makes you tick and just do it
18:27
SPEAKER_00: in every new place that you move.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Even if you're starting to do it by yourself,
18:30
SPEAKER_00: you will eventually make community and do it with other people.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Reinvention is the third one I mentioned.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's possible to move to a new city and especially not a new country
18:41
SPEAKER_00: because Thank you.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was when I realized that I did that that I was like,
19:00
SPEAKER_00: oh, I think I'm good here now.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: So there's a certain element of reinvention.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think that what's interesting is to apply the face of the city onto yourself.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: New York is the kind of place where it's hard to be I saw it as this big thing.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: I saw it as this dominant, confident concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: That expression exists for
19:55
SPEAKER_00: It was by applying a little bit of that city and a little bit of that vibe to myself
20:01
SPEAKER_00: that I eventually started to feel more confident.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: There's something about spending time with people who are from a place
20:08
SPEAKER_00: that transmits a certain comfort and a certain...
20:14
SPEAKER_00: piece of that city that I don't know that you can get otherwise.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Reinvention isn't really kind of becoming something new.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: I think it's about finding out which parts of myself thrive here and how
20:28
SPEAKER_00: to make those live in the new environment that I'm in.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So apply a little bit of the city to myself, but apply a little bit of myself to the city.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Reinvention is really kind of
20:43
SPEAKER_00: It looked different everywhere I lived,
20:45
SPEAKER_00: but the recipe looked the same in that it came from the locals and it came from
20:51
SPEAKER_00: the habits of the city.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: In Paris, it was smoking.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I smoked when I moved to Paris.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Each and every time I moved to Paris, three times in my life, three times that I smoked.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Because it gave me a certain confidence and it was a certain...
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth and important thing I want to share is spending time alone.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And this is going to be a hard one for a lot of people.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: But spending time with myself is a lot of people.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I learned to do.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: The first time I had to buy food by myself in France and eat it by myself on
21:37
SPEAKER_00: a bench, I did not feel comfortable.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I felt like,
21:40
SPEAKER_00: oh my God,
21:41
SPEAKER_00: everyone's going to be looking at me and thinking this pathetic girl is sitting
21:45
SPEAKER_00: and eating by herself,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: which is so funny to admit because I don't think anybody even noticed me.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: But it is important and probably the only way forward.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: When you're vulnerable,
21:57
SPEAKER_00: when you're lonely,
21:58
SPEAKER_00: when you're overwhelmed by newness,
22:01
SPEAKER_00: and when you don't have community, you actually have yourself.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's only you yourself who can take you out of that difficult position
22:10
SPEAKER_00: that you're in and apply all of the things I just talked about and yank yourself out
22:16
SPEAKER_00: of it.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: It scares a lot of people because it's not something we're super comfortable with.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Even being an only child, I've always had a lot of people around me, a lot of friends, family.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: So the first time I moved and even the first time I traveled, it felt very strange.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: These are things you learn to be comfortable with and some people enjoy them
22:40
SPEAKER_00: and some people don't.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm really sharing all this and I'm telling you all this because I have
22:45
SPEAKER_00: so many friends that have told me they wish that they could have moved
22:49
SPEAKER_00: at some point,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: but that it was either not the right time or just too scary
22:54
SPEAKER_00: or they had met their partner and their relationship couldn't sustain long distance.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say that it's not scary.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And I was terrified each and every time.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: But my desire to live out my dreams required relocation.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And looking back,
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I can see that the way I got through the hardship each time was with the recipe
23:17
SPEAKER_00: that I just shared.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: I created it for myself when I was in my early 20s,
23:22
SPEAKER_00: but I have replicated it over 20 moves later between the ages of 20 and 40.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting to think about how The new dreams that form
23:35
SPEAKER_00: when you put yourself into a new environment because you have the space
23:40
SPEAKER_00: for dreaming.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Somehow it's as if our brains,
23:44
SPEAKER_00: when they're surrounded by novelty,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: they go to places they wouldn't go when they are surrounded by routine.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So I just really encourage you to not be overshadowed by your fear and know that
24:01
SPEAKER_00: if I've done it, anybody can do it.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: It is exactly where I am today.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm sitting in the fear and the limbo of not knowing what's next.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: My family and I want to move next year, but we're not really sure about where.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: My husband and I have kind of agreed that We'd like our daughter
24:21
SPEAKER_00: to start second grade wherever we're moving,
24:23
SPEAKER_00: which means that September 2027, we theoretically are living somewhere new.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: But moving with a family brings a whole new fear I have never experienced before.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it will be, which in itself is scary.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: We are heading to Amsterdam this summer for three weeks to try it on
24:44
SPEAKER_00: because we feel like that is a city that fits the criteria we have determined.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: But it's not really the logistics that feel overwhelming to me.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: That's my specialty.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I'll find a school.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll plan the move.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: We'll rent our house.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: We'll get our furniture over there or we'll rent a furnished apartment over there.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: That can all be figured out.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: It's holding the vision when everyone else is going to be tired and scared.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: It's moving the That feels overwhelming because there are all these other factors
25:16
SPEAKER_00: to take into account other than just myself and the setup.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: But I know I'm going to apply the same recipe.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I know that the kind of romantic optimist will come out.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And once we have that place and once the logistics are done
25:32
SPEAKER_00: and once we're there feeling overwhelmed,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: we're going to Figure out what is our routine?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: What is it that we can do consistently that makes the place feel like it's ours?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: How can we apply curiosity for the things we love?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Max is also a foodie, so I know a lot of it is going to be about figuring out the food scene.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: We're both really into culture,
25:56
SPEAKER_00: and that's actually one of the reasons we want to move is to have access
25:59
SPEAKER_00: to more culture.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: So going to concerts,
26:02
SPEAKER_00: going to museums,
26:03
SPEAKER_00: exposing our kids to that even more is going to be fun and exciting and give us
26:08
SPEAKER_00: a sense of this is our place.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So all of those things that feel really overwhelming to me,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: and I've moved over 20 times,
26:17
SPEAKER_00: they should really show you that The fear doesn't go away,
26:22
SPEAKER_00: but you do build a certain muscle memory of knowing how to make it exciting
26:29
SPEAKER_00: and knowing how to find your place and come back to yourself when you move.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And granted, you're going to figure out your own recipe.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: I've just shared mine,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: and I hope that it might inspire you to live out that dream if you've ever had it,
26:45
SPEAKER_00: because it's really thrilling and it's really been one of the most exciting things
26:50
SPEAKER_00: If you want to see photos from different periods of my life that I talk about,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: make sure you're subscribed to the Dots and Dreams podcast substack.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I share them in the newsletter that goes out with each episode.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: You can even hit reply and tell
27:18
SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed listening to me and could rate
27:21
SPEAKER_00: and review this episode wherever you're listening,
27:23
SPEAKER_00: that will help others like you and I find this show.