In 2010, Jen and I left our lives in New York City for a new adventure that was intended to help us restore a work/life balance. The hustle and bustle of the city was wearing our spirits down, so fresh beginnings were sought.
Few places call for a return than the island of Paros, and we made our way. We spent a magical year, restoring a villa, whiling away the evening hours and being in love. After six months, we decided our lives should take us back to the US (aka "reality" in some strange way), where we found a new life in San Francisco.
Now, five years later, our lives have once again found a need to restore the harmony. San Francisco, a city that gave us so much in career opportunities, gorgeous nature, year round perfect weather, surrounded us with innovative and entrepreneurial people, was a dream come true. Our love for the city grew, despite the rising cost of living and doing business saw unprecedented growth, surpassing even Manhattan as the most expensive city to live in the US. With the remarkable growth of some of the leading tech companies in the world and lack of safety net to secure the homes and livelihoods of some of the tenants underserved groups, comes an underbelly of poverty and rise in homelessness that saw record numbers forced into a life on the streets. The streets rarely felt safe and barely a day went by where you didn't see someone sleeping amidst garbage on the sidewalk. My heart goes out to those who suffer, but it simply became such a common sight, that you felt numb in attempting to help those around you. Pairing this with our inability to make San Francisco a permanent home due to the exorbitant real estate prices, we struggled to grow the roots of our little family.
Dear baby Astrid then shifted our focus from how far our careers can be taken to how soon can we be home to share those precious moments. Leaving her in the hands of a nanny, who was amazing, so often at such a tender age simply broke our hearts. The tide of ineffectual family living led us to reimagine our future, and we decided that the moment was ripe for a fresh adventure. Many locations harkened and we searched for cities globally that could restore balance to our interests and family needs. What we came to realize was that once again, we were in a unique position to take advantage of a getaway to Paros, Greece. My position with IMA lent itself to telecommuting for a considerable duration. Jen sought a way to treasure the time with Astrid and pursue a new passion at the same time.
So we charted our journey and discussed at length the trials and tribulations involved with such a young infant, but we have such intimacy with the island already that we knew in our hearts it had to happen. The island has come to mean so much to us, from my introduction as an infant to Paros in 1984, my many formative summers through my youth, as a backpacking launchpad for my college years, young in love with Jen dancing til the sun rose in 2009, staying throughout the year working remotely and updating the villa in 2010, our jet set wedding in 2014, floating Jen's pregnant belly in the Mediterranean in 2015, and now to complete the circle, introducing our child to the place we love so intimately.
It is with this desire for balance that we hope to take a step back from our shared existence, examine what brings us joy, remind us that life is better served together than apart. We needed a sabbatical from our life in a way, and now we have begun a journey to see which way we want to grow our family and remind ourselves that we should always be in love with our life. So far, it's looking pretty good.
