Sometimes We Need to Disrupt Our Routine

Reflecting on living abroad for a month

Our London street

By the time you’re reading this, I am getting ready to leave London, where my partner and I have spent the last month.

It wasn’t vacation. It was short-term living abroad.

That means renting an apartment in a neighborhood away from tourists, doing regular grocery store runs, making coffee at home most mornings, usually cooking but occasionally going out to lunch or dinner.

It means days spent working, carving out time to clean the kitchen, getting a hair cut, and going to the pharmacy.

I know to some people this sounds silly. Why pay a month’s rent (plus your mortgage back home) to not have a vacation?

The simple answer is “change”.

We both desperately needed a change from our regular routine.

We needed to look at new things and wake up in a different room and walk down different streets.

And I know how much privledge comes with the ability to do this.

But that’s OK, we all have different privileges and disadvantages.

For me— I have the privledge of being able to afford to do this, with a job that allows it, as well as not having anyone who needs me to stay at home (i.e. small children or sickly parents).

Anyway, back to the change.

We really found ourselves craving newness. And to be completely honest, when we have felt like this in the past, we’ve moved. LOL.

I’m serious. We’ve been together for 15 years. The last five years have been in Philly, but for our first ten years together, we lived in eight places.

We spent two years living in Hoboken, NJ (NYC’s 6th borough, essentially) and then we moved to Singapore.

Then we spent two more years in a different apartment in Hoboken and then we moved to Thailand.

We spent three years living in Astoria, Queens and while there bought a house in the Poconos.

We then moved to Los Angeles for three months.

Then back to Hoboken in yet another apartment for 1 year and then moved to Philly.

We were all over the place and now that we’ve been in our Philly house for five years, we have been aching to make a change.

But if you read my very first post on here, you know one of the things that has been top of mind for me as I age, is not wanting to lose proximity to my family and friends.

I don’t want to keep starting over. So, no, I wasn’t willing to move again.

To solve this, we have been working on a plan to spend large stretches of time in other places, with Philly remaining a home base since this is where our families are and where we have built a community of friends.

This little London excursion was the first experiment in this plan.

And it’s been interesting.

One month is a weird amount of time to be abroad.

It’s long enough to not feel like a vacation.

But too long to buy butter only once. You know what I mean?

Ideally, our time away from Philly each year would be a minimum of three months, a maximum of six. We’re working on it. We’ll see how it pans out.

But in the meantime, I’ve learned some things on this trip that tie into my need for newness.

The trip has certainly addressed my need for change. It’s been great hearing English accents when we have the windows open and people walk by our apartment. It makes me pause and I realize that I’m not in Kansas Philly anymore.

It’s fun to explore what’s in the grocery stores compared to back home. Insider info: it is far less choice (Fage yogurt, I miss you!) but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It’s been wonderful to walk around a new neighborhood and take note of the things I want more of in my life like lots of greenspace around every corner and lenient open container laws — hello boozy picnics in the park.

Discovered while on a stroll in our neighborhood, nestled among the bustling London streets.

It’s also been a challenge though.

Cooking in a kitchen that isn’t mine and is also not very well equipped has been a struggle.

Do not get me started on how difficult it is to flip an egg with a half an inch thick wooden spatula! Or cut tomatoes with a knife that likely has never been sharpened.

Then there’s the fact that the coffee maker in this apartment is a french press. And only a french press.

Listen, I love an afternoon french press moment but please give me a drip coffee pot in the morning so I can have my two (ok, three. why lie?) cups in the morning!

Or the fact that European beds are just smaller. Full size bed?! We all know that cuddling at bedtime isn’t real. A kiss and roll over— that’s the way of long term couples. Full size beds make that an almost acrobatic maneuver.

But if I’m being truthful, these challenges have been part of what made this trip successful because they made me realize how much I love my home.

My modest little house on a cozy tree-lined street full of my things.

My perfectly seasoned pans and super sharp knives, and multitude of coffee apparatus, my favorite grocery brands, and my queen sized bed. My dryer. Oh, my dryer. How do you get a hang-dried t-shirt to not feel stretched out?! Someone tell me.

In addition to making me realize how much I love my home, this trip has helped me to remember how important living abroad is to me too.

During the last five years in my house, I’ve allowed myself to get a little too comfortable.

Meaning, life goes by way too quickly to allow the routine to never change. It’s the classic “blink and you’re 75 and wondering what you did” syndrome. No thank you.

I think part of this mid-life challenge that I’ve (should I say we’ve?) been facing is a need to feel challenged in a good way — to make life feel new.

To disrupt the monotony of the day to day life that makes us say: really, is this it?

For me and my partner, travel is that thing. But really, if that’s not yours or if it can’t be yours right now, then there is certainly something else, right?

Maybe taking a dance class is that thing. Or learning a new language. Or organizing a new “club” or group activity.

Or all of the above.

It’s my assumption that when we’re feeling in a lull, simply doing something new will make a major difference.

And I think whatever it is, it just needs to meet a few criteria in order to pull us out of the sea of sameness.

• it challenges us

• it disrupts our routine

• it brings us joy

What do you think?