After spending the summer in Mallorca, coming back to the United States was not easy. While we missed the comfort of being in our own home and of course we missed all of our pets, we suddenly found ourselves feeling like we no longer belong in Charlottesville. During a conversation with Sina last week, I mentioned that Peter (the founder of Kognitiv) and Mergim (a friend within my company) are both moving to London and she said “Maybe we should be moving to London too.” I don’t know how serious she was, but it stuck with me. Maybe we SHOULD be moving to London. Why the hell not?
We started to seriously think about the possibility of moving to London. We looked for Montessori schools and there were a few options. The first problem was that almost every school had a uniform. What gives? Is that just a British thing? Montessori is all about celebrating individuality. How can you have a school uniform? Given our family’s love of fashion, that just wasn’t going to happen. Neither Sina nor I have ever been excited about the prospect of living in London. Both of us believe that our happiness has a direct correlation to the amount of sunlight exposure we have, and Sina correctly pointed out that constant rain puts a damper (pardon the pun) on one’s wardrobe options. Most importantly, as we are focused on exposing Luka and Taj to new cultures and languages, London probably isn’t the best option. It is a very diverse, multi-cultural city, but the girls would not learn a new language.
Maybe we should go to Paris? It’s a 2 hour train ride from London, so I could easily go meet with Peter and Mergim… It’s quite central and I can easily get anywhere in Europe for work, we could all learn French, and well, it’s PARIS. As we started to think more about it, the uneasy feeling that we both had about London quickly disappeared and was replaced with a feeling of excitement. For the last several days we have been writing to Montessori schools and AirBnB renters to check out our options.
As luck would have it, the house sitters that took care of our house and pets over the summer while we were in Mallorca fell in love with Charlottesville and decided to move there! They do not have a place to live yet, and after speaking with them it appears they would be more than happy to stay in our house for a year.
This week in Toronto I ran the idea by Peter and one or two others to ensure there were no objections, and it appears I have the green light from work. So all of the pieces now appear to be falling into place. The only concern that remains now is a financial one. We really cannot afford to pay our mortgage in Charlottesville and rent an apartment in Paris at the same time. Not to mention, it is a given that we will spend more money, on clothes, food, traveling, etc. Plus, we would lose 40% of the tuition on the girls’ current school. It’s going to add up fast.
But the girls are not getting any younger and it has always been our dream to take them and live in different countries, and learn new languages. If we put it off, it will never happen. After selling my company 2 years ago, it feels like it’s time to start achieving more of our personal goals. Best of all, we can do that while still making significant contributions to the company and growing professionally. As of now, I think it’s a gamble worth taking. Sina and I are going to discuss it this weekend and hopefully we will have a decision by Monday.
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