What Goes Up Must Come Down

Issue #49 · Embracing the pull of permanence and finally staying put.

Hi there, I’m Emily! 🙋🏼‍♀️ For those who are new, here’s a quick catch-up:

Five years ago, I packed my entire life into a suitcase and hit the road, moving to a new city every few months. Now I write stories about the quirks, chaos and realities of living abroad, intertwined with my attempt to create a happy, meaningful life.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Two suitcases, an overweight backpack, and a tote bag bursting at the seams.

Three flights, two long layovers, and an eight-hour time zone jump.

Needless to say, after twenty-eight hours in transit, I was beyond relieved to finally step into my apartment and put my bags down — but this time, unpacking made everything feel heavier.

After spending the last five years without a fixed address, I’ve finally landed in Valencia, Spain — the city that, if the visa gods are kind enough, I plan to officially call home going forwards.

This decision has been a long time coming: When my original plan to spend the summer and fall of 2020 in Europe blew up into socially-distanced smithereens, I decided to embrace the awkward (and apartment-less) limbo phase I suddenly found myself in. After waiting things out for a bit, I eventually packed my entire life into a few bags and set off for Mexico with a one-way ticket in hand, my only real plan being to wing it. I certainly never imagined that I’d stick to this transient travel lifestyle for five whole years. But thirty countries, five continents, and dozens of cities later — well, here we are.

Traveling has been amazing for all of the reasons you might expect, but the best accidental side effect is that nomading provides the opportunity to test-drive what life in other cities, countries, and cultures could be like. Over time, hopping from city to city began to feel less like aimless wandering and more like intentional research. The past two years in particular, I’ve been increasingly focused on mapping out my future: the kind of life I want to build, the version of myself I want to evolve into, and the rhythm I want my days to take. And at the heart of all of this careful self-reflection remains one lingering question: once this whole travel phase runs its course, where do I want to plant roots and build a life?

Choosing to permanently move to a new city — especially one that’s in a foreign country, with a different language, on another continent — should probably feel pretty monumental. Yet somehow, things have felt surprisingly natural so far. I’ve already spent the past two summers in Valencia, and showing up to a place where there was a friend waiting for me at the airport, where I don’t need to rely on Google Maps, and where I can mostly speak the language has put me miles kilometers ahead of where I probably should be at this point.

That being said, I’ve only just begun to untangle the logistical fine print of staying here long-term. I’m still in a temporary apartment, I’m about to dive headfirst into complicated visa paperwork + notoriously frustrating Spanish bureaucracy, and I still need to leave Spain for a few weeks this summer before I can officially call this wonderful country home.

But despite the messiness ahead, my spirits are high, the sun is out, and the oranges are in season. I’m back in my favorite daily routine, I’ve already made a few new friends, and each day reveals something new about this city. There’s a special kind of fleeting magic in being the new kid on the block — it’s a mix of curiosity, nerves, excitement, a built-in excuse to try new things, and a suspicious awareness that most of what I still don’t know will only reveal itself with time.

Fortunately, time is on my side. Because rather than just passing through yet another city, this arrival came with a heaviness that I haven’t felt on any of my other trips. Heavy in the best way possible — for once, not like lugging around bulky overweight luggage, but more like there’s a gravitational force tugging me to stay.

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