We Dont Get That Channel Here

We have our blog listed on a website called expat-blog.com. Its basically an online community for people who have moved out of their native country to live in another. We are (of course) in the America-to-Ireland section, our blog listed right alongside a few others. Im never on that website, I just thought it would be cool to get my blog out there for other people who may be wrestling with the desire to move abroad. Hopefully my writing about our various trips and struggles encourages others to travel more, and have adventures that will create those forever-memories. It doesnt matter where you go or what you do, but every opportunity that arises to do something extraordinary should be leaped at and tackled immediately!

My whole life, Ive tried to live by the philosophy of "why not?" It applies to most situations. For example, we were in Brussels, and poking around cobblestone alleys trying to find this statue called Mannequin de Pis, which is a really funny statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain. On the way there, we saw a street vendor selling what looked like meatball soup. Upon closer inspection, I had to play my game: "Why not eat that? Because its snail soup, not meatball soup. Pass." Upon later reflection, Jon thinks we should have gone for it. Im ok with my decision to not contract salmonella, or whatever disease you get from eating boiled dirt and snail poop.

For a much larger and more personal example, a year ago we asked ourselves the very same "Why not" question when we were trying to decide what the next step in our lives would be. Should we have kids? Should we buy a house? At 23 and 25, we felt too young to be doing either, but didnt know where else to head. We were feeling a little stuck, a little suffocated, like our life together was so happy but so boring. And we both wanted more. After a going-away party for some friends, we started to ask ourselves why we werent the ones going away. And if we went away, how far would we go? Earlier, our friend Matt said he could see us living in Ireland. We laughed, but later that night we werent laughing anymore. Could we really move abroad? What about our families? What about kids, and that house we nearly bought? What about our dogs? What about our friends? What is Europe even like? What if we hate it? What if we get lost and scared? But then....Why not?

And so we did.

Now here we are, a couple months shy of a year living in Ireland, and we have no regrets. And we were recently given an opportunity to play my yet game again. She saw my blog listed on the expat-blog,com, and emailed me. Want to be on tv? she said. After searching her name on LinkedIn to be sure it wasnt a scam, I called her back. After all, why not?