Making the Decision to Leave San Diego

After a long connecting flight, I stepped into the warm Southern California sunshine and into the path of three kids who flung themselves around me.

“The kids want to decorate the Xmas tree,” my husband, S, apologised. “You can sit on the sofa with a glass of wine.”

And just like that, I was home and launched into the holiday season, never imagining it would be our last in San Diego.

In January, with the kids back at school, S and I started hiking the trail above our neighbourhood several days a week. We’d hike four miles among desert brush sprayed with yellow wildflowers, cholla cacti, and evergreen shrubbery. After rainfall we’d smell the mud fragrant with lingering petrichor, and dodge deer droppings flecked with bright red berries and coyote scat filled with rabbit fur. It was the perfect way to feel alive—moving our bodies in nature, allowing our minds to roam, sometimes sharing our thoughts about leaving San Diego, sometimes staying quiet.

What would moving to Spain look like? we wondered. The first thing was to explore possible schools for the kids. We narrowed down our choices to two. Both schools accepted us. And suddenly everything started falling into place, as though once we decided to step onto this invisible moving walkway our path became straightforward. Keep going. Check that box. Now check that one. Life became a series of pleasurable to-do lists.

Before we knew it, we were saying: We’re moving to Spain in July. An hour east of where my mum, sister, and baby niece live. Málaga.