Not Always Easy But Never Dull
“I remember sitting in your kitchen with you one night, boxes all around, all the cabinets emptied out on to the counters, and you looking at me and asking, “Ceci, what am I doing?’
“I have to admit, I was wondering the same thing. What were you doing? You were getting married and moving to Ireland? What?!”
Lief and I, in Baltimore this long holiday weekend, had dinner last night with my college roommate, Ceci, who was recalling the inauspicious beginnings of Lief and my co-adventures overseas all those years ago.
“Yes, who could have imagined back then what that move to Waterford would lead to?” I asked.
“I make the point for readers all the time,” I continued. “I think it comes off as marketing hype. But it’s the truth. The first step is by far the hardest. If you can muster the courage to overcome your fears and your uncertainties and doubts and take that first chance, it really is downhill from there. Every subsequent decision is easier.
“More interesting, though, is how your perspective changes. Very quickly, after you’ve become physically resident someplace new, the world looks different. You see things differently. Your mind opens. Your horizons expand, not only literally, geographically, but also metaphorically.
“You really only have to take that first step to begin to see that it’s not cliché promo speak. The world really is alive with opportunity. Everywhere you look you’ll notice another option…another opportunity. Pick one. Pursue it. It will lead to others. And on and on. So that, looking back, years later, as we are today, over 14 years of living abroad adventures, the path from where you started to where you are is full of twists and turns you never could have imagined or predicted. And the road ahead is just as interestingly unknowable.
“Making a new life in a new country isn’t always easy,” I said to Ceci last night, “but it’s never dull.”
Kathleen Peddicord
