I'm not sure this answers the question posed at the start of this blog - how does an expat "come home" after a decade abroad? One thing we've learned is that the US will never be 100% home. We left our hearts in Paris and probably won't "find home" until the day we move back, but our finances and our careers have other ideas for now. What does feel special is that we've broken the holding pattern we've been in since moving to the US: hunkering down, lining our savings accounts, living in tiny spaces with roommates, and paying our monthly rent in places that would never be ours. The roommate situation might not be changing for now, and we'll still be adult-bunk-bedding in our king size loft, so this isn't a 100% leap into full adulthood. But there are some big wins: we'll finally have a slice of our very own outdoors, a major gift to the fur babies. And we've finally escaped that landlord middle-layer. After the trauma of our arbitrary eviction back in 2017 from a beloved home for which we'd always paid rent, just because our landlord felt like taking it back, these keys in hand feel like a massive weight off my shoulders. It's funny to think that this is what home ownership looks like. I'd always imagined the big day would involve falling in love with the perfect home. This isn't that, but it's the right next step for us, and a very sensible two-bed two-bath in a charming community in a nice part of Emeryville, just a few miles from our previous place in downtown Oakland. And it'll soon be home. Here's to next steps, even if they aren't the big leaps once envisioned.
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