Boxes in my Dining Room

In September 2018 my rheumatologist delivered some news.

Like my mother before me, I have osteoarthritis. The progressive kind. The kind where the joints don't just ache — they move. My hands are curling now as I write this. My ankles stiffen in the morning. My toes are beginning to bend. My doctor was not unkind, but was honest in the way good doctors are when they want you to hear something clearly.

I heard it. "It sucks to be you." Okay, that's not really what he said. But it felt like it.

The following month, I went to an executive women's retreat in Hawaii — the same retreat that, two years earlier, had produced the vision that became my book Dare to be Deliberate and my highest revenue year in business. I went expecting a business reboot. A new idea. Fresh enthusiasm for the work.

Instead, during a guided vision exercise — one of those experiences where you close your eyes and imagine yourself ten years forward — only one thing kept appearing.

Europe. Now. Not retirement. Now.

I came home and made a plan.

By January 2020, I had a realtor. My house would go on the market on May 1st. I would be out of Seattle by the end of summer, spend a few months in Iowa with family, then land in Portugal in October. I had already made two trips in 2019 to figure out exactly where — the Algarve was too resort-y, Porto felt possible and alive, Lisbon was too big. I had a flight booked for April to find an apartment and sign a lease for my visa application.

I had boxes packed and stacked in my dining room. I was getting rid of things. I was, for the first time in years, light.

And then March 2020 happened to all of us.

By March 20th, I had no clients. No income. My flight to Portugal was cancelled. I moved the boxes from my dining room into the guest room and shut the door.

For the next few months, I sat on my sofa and watched every romantic comedy where someone falls in love while traveling overseas. I cried. A lot. I had been so ready to leave that I wasn't prepared to stay.

By August, I was really low. I called my mom, and I sobbed — something I never do.

Being a good mom, she said: You could always come here.

Iowa. I had left Iowa at eighteen and never looked back. Moving back to Iowa was not on my bingo card for this lifetime.

But that was a Thursday.

Next: What happened on Friday — and how a house sold without even putting it on the market.