The road less travelled

The time when my husband and I lived on opposite coasts

2005: Freshly married and just moved to New England.

“The little boat of you and me
Went sailing on a deep blue sea.
We weathered winds and crashing waves
And we were strong and true and brave.
And we were still in love,
So we kept sailing on the deep blue sea.
The little boat of you and me.”
(Author unknown)

In 2008, three years after we got married and relocated from the UK to my husband’s native Massachusetts, I moved — by myself — to Bellingham, WA.

I loved my husband. I loved my job at a local college. But I was wilting away. As beautiful as New England is, the long winters and hot humid summers were hard. But more than that, it did not feel like home. You know how they say home is where the heart is, or home is where your loved ones are? This is true, but for me the actual place matters as well, and I have always been very sensitive to the energy of physical locations. I even developed a kind of theory around the concept of “geographical seasons”.

It goes something like this:

I have always felt most at home in the west. My favorite places where I’ve lived are Vancouver and Bellingham on the West Coast, Richmond in west London, Bath in the west of England, Cologne in the west of Germany. Whenever I lived in the east – like Kent in the UK, or Toronto, Miami, and New England on the East Coast – I felt like a fish out of water. This then made me wonder... is our geographical preference influenced by a subconscious seasonal preference? Like, the west is where the sun sets after a full day which is like autumn after summer. So the north would be winter, the south summer, and the east spring. I am an autumn person through and through: it’s my favorite season of the year, and despite the physical challenges that come with aging, I feel very at home in the autumn of my life. Plus, my general disposition is congruent with that of a mature and mellow fall day, filled with warm colors and a sense of comfort and coziness.

Not sure if this makes sense to anyone?

Anyway. Back to 2008.

My husband and I had a long conversation about our situation. He was traveling a lot for work in those days, which meant I was alone 1-2 weeks a month. I had met some nice people but had no close friends. When he was on the road, I hated being in the big house by myself, it creeped me out. My husband knew that ever since I lived in Vancouver in my 20s, my dream was to move back to the Pacific Northwest. So one day he said: “Why don’t you move ahead to the west coast and I will follow as soon as I can?” He liked it out there, too, but he was still needed in New England while his teenage son was going through a difficult time, and his career was at an important point.

2008: Ready for our roadtrip.

So that’s what we did. My mother came over from Germany and together with my goddaughter who was visiting from Vancouver, we packed up the little Beetle and drove across the country to Bellingham, WA. We had chosen Bellingham because it was close to Vancouver, where I still had good friends from living there in the 80s. I found a cute rental apartment and a job as a hotel supervisor.

Most of our friends and family did not understand what we were doing.

Many were worried that our young marriage was in trouble. What they did not understand was that this was never about a trial separation or potential divorce. Instead it was about my husband setting me free to reclaim the parts of myself that had gotten lost in the transition from my single life in Europe to being married in a part of the world that did not feel like home. It was about setting my husband free, too, to be there for his young son who still needed his dad. I never asked my husband to choose between his wife or son, because that is an impossible choice to make for a loving husband and father.

We set each other free and our marriage became stronger in the process. My husband combined his business travels with trips to visit me, and we saw each other about every six weeks. He also fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and we decided this is where we wanted to settle down. Alas, even when he felt that his son was ok now, he could not make the move professionally, after the 2008 crash there were no jobs out there. So after two years of long-distancing it and missing each other terribly, I decided to move back to New England. A couple of years after that his company relocated us to Germany and then the UK. Then, in late 2014, we took another leap of faith, quit out jobs, and moved to Bellingham — at last making our dream come true.

2026: Living our dream life in the Pacific Northwest.

The rest, as they say, is history. We always say that Europe was for me, New England for my husband, and the Pacific Northwest for us. We love it here and this is home. As for our marriage, we’re still going strong after 21 years. More than anything, we are a team, and there is nothing Team Martin can’t do once we put our minds to it. ❤️

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As I am settling into my sabbatical, there are many ideas perculating in my head, many topics I want to write about. Alas, much of that feels too muddled at the moment, my blogging stride is still figuring itself out. I hope you enjoy these personal stories from my longstanding draft folder in the meantime!