Burn the boats
Maybe you’ve heard the story of Cortés demanding his men burn the ships when they landed in Veracruz in the 16th century. I had heard it long ago and found it to be a bold (and possibly unwise) move. It wasn’t until I moved to my own Veracruz would I understand why Cortes demanded this of his men.
When you have no other option, you battle more boldly.
When we arrived in Spain I had one foot (and a large part of my heart) firmly back on the metaphorical boat. I was not all in immediately upon arrival. I was immediately hit with a wave of anxiety that I had not anticipated. Things were exponentially harder than expected, people were different than I remembered and the city felt lonely and intimidating.
I can laugh now-many years later-as I let my daughters complete their schoolwork in cafes around town and walk the length of the city with friends, knowing I feel far safer with them doing this is Seville than I would in our own hometown. But in those early days, Seville was a city full of mystery to me-constantly betraying me each time I thought I understood her.
I should have burned my boat.
It started innocently enough. We had to buy return tickets because they were cheaper than one way tickets when we moved to Spain. So day by day, as things did not progress with our immigration paperwork, I began to believe that I might have to fly home with the girls. That didn’t sound so bad as the weeks dragged on living in an Airbnb and being told no daily by the immigration office.
But what I was really doing was saying, “you don’t have to stay here if it gets too hard.” Thankfully, America is far from Spain and I never had the option to go home. Had I, it would have been nearly impossible to return. Little by little, I settled in. Slowly at first. Celebrating the tiniest of victories (some of them are documented on this blog). Until one day, I woke up and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I told Shaun on my 40th birthday that as I looked around at the precious friends who came out to celebrate, I could honestly say I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Even though I wished a few people could be at that celebration who weren’t there, I didn’t long to be somewhere else.
My advice to those in the midst of a big life shift. Burn your boats. Fight the battle right where you are. And don’t tell yourself you can go back. Because as I’m learning now that I’m back in America, you can never really go home.
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