From the Editor’s Desk: Here and There (Premium)

After a 20-year break, my wife Stephanie and I visited Europe again in 2003, and we immediately fell in love. Again. But this time, we could do something about it, and so we booked a series of additional trips, always to Paris, with an eye on expanding the time we spent there each year. But we ran into a predictable set of complications related to cost and family before my wife discovered a solution that would let us be in Europe for weeks at a time without having to pay for a hotel: In 2007, we started doing annual summer home swaps in Europe, when the kids were 9 and 6 years old. And that first swap, a three-week stay in Paris, was so successful that my mind ran wild with the possibility of extending our stay each year until we were literally spending every summer abroad.

That never happened. During our second home swap, in 2008, and for four weeks, our daughter Kelly had a meltdown during a side trip visiting with friends in Toulouse after we had toured one too many cathedrals. After we calmed her down, she told us that she missed her friends and home and didn’t want to be away for so long. And with that, the dream died: We continued our home swaps in Europe right until the 2020 pandemic, but we limited each trip to three weeks so that the kids could enjoy most of their summers homes with their friends.

This worked out well enough, and my wife and I continued to travel internationally, with and without the kids, at other times during each year. I can’t explain our love of travel, and I’ve compared it to asking someone why they like chocolate, they just do. All I can say is that it was a driving force in our adult lives, and that being away—being there, as opposed to here—played a big role in how we see the world around us. We were as confused by our homebody relatives and friends as I know they were of us and our too-frequent trips.

“You’re going away again?”

We were met with similar disbelief by some—not all—friends and family when we moved to Pennsylvania in 2017, as if leaving the Boston area was an unfathomable affront to their sensibilities. And while we tried to ameliorate hurt feelings by driving back home for long weeks as much as possible, at least quarterly before the pandemic, it’s clear that’s not good enough for some—back in January, I mentioned the guilt trips we still suffer—but we also have friends who visit us regularly in Pennsylvania, too, which is appreciated. And friends who have visited us when we’re in Mexico now. We all have our own thresholds for change and acceptance of things that are different from our norm.

Anyway, we do have that itch, my wife and me. And it’s a good thing it’s both of us. I can only imagine how rocky things might be if only one of us was eager to pull the switch on traveling, or moving, or just mixing things up in general. That’s all luck, as is our kids’ acceptance of what sometimes feels like constant change. I mean, we did live in three different homes last year, four counting the place in Mexico.

“You’re moving again?”

Which is of course now accompanied by, “You’re going to Mexico again?”

Well, yes. This place in Mexico scratches these collective itches nicely as it’s affordable, diverse, and new, with lots to explore, and it lets us spend time both here and away. Granted, it’s not perfect. Last week, I touched on the worry that threatens our long-held dream of swapping time between here and there, and the paradox of missing Mexico when we’re home and missing home when we’re away. Home being a shifting condition that, to me, is mostly Pennsylvania with a bit of Boston thrown in thanks to the family and friends we still have here.

So we’re wrestling with the same issues as ever. We’re in Mexico now for five weeks, our longest trip here yet, and our longest continuous time outside the U.S. And I was confronted by my internal hypocrite almost immediately when we arrived at the apartment after the most seamless imaginable trip given the hour-plus drive to the airport, and all the rigmarole of air travel with nearly five hours in the air. But there were no issues. We let ourselves in, verified that the electricity and Internet were still on and that our stuff was all where we left it, and headed back outside into the night to walk a few blocks to one of our favorite restaurants. At that moment, I was just happy to be here, happy to be in a place—not the place, but a place—that feels like home.

Last night, we had drinks and dinner with a new neighbor and friend, the guy who bought the penthouse apartment across from us in our building. We are fascinated by him, and by how we had retired roughly 10 years ago and had landed in Mexico after a lifetime of traveling worldwide. There are lessons here for us, and we’ve asked him many questions about kids and family and friends, about trips back home, and all the issues we’re now confronting.

And perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised to discover he’s curious about us in the same way. About these two Americans with spotty Spanish who ended up across from him in an apartment in Roma Norte and seem uniquely interested in the area, it’s people, and places. But there’s one thing he doesn’t understand. “Why on earth don’t you just move to Mexico?

This triggered a moment of silence and introspection.

My answer sounds as lame to me as it did to him, I’m sure. For starters, we have two cats, and they’re older and couldn’t come here, where the high altitude would kill them if my annoyance of being trapped in a 750-square-foot space with the two of them didn’t do it first. We also have kids, of course, and our daughter, she of the Toulousian tantrum 17 years ago, is now a calm adult finishing college this May before moving on to a master’s degree. But we still don’t know where that will occur, only that it won’t be in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she is now. It’s possible that where she ends up, or some change our son Mark makes, might alter our plans. We have this condo that we’re helping our family out with, and …

“These sound like excuses, not reasons,” he said. He had just witnessed us meeting up with a friend before dinner, saw all the hugging, smiles, and laughter, the catching up and promises of seeing each other again in the next few days. How could we not just want to be here?

More silence. More introspection.

Stephanie finally explained that these issues could resolve themselves soon and in a way that would enable us to move forward on our ever-shifting plans for the future, a future that would better balance here and there. Kelly has expressed interest in taking the cats off our hands when she heads off to her next stop, for example. (And while this feels irresponsible to me, I am nonetheless clinging to this possibility like a lifeline.) She told him about an idea we had of perhaps spending most of the year in Mexico, while splitting the summer months between Pennsylvania and Boston. Which is perhaps too simplistic givens holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and … this is how my mind works. All I see in this plan is complexity and problems. Blockers. It’s easy to point out the flaws. Too easy.

I suppose this just demonstrated to our new neighbor and friend that we aren’t ready. And I’m curious to continue this conversation with him. To learn more about how he dealt with, and perhaps still deals with, the paradoxical longing for the place you’re not. And on this morning’s walk, I brought up this discussion with my wife, as I have a few ideas about how the difficult might be overcome. I also want to see how spending more time here, as we are on this trip, changes things. Will I end up like Kelly in Toulouse?

My wife and the neighbor friend agreed on one thing: We may have our reasons for doing what we’re doing now, but there will never be a better time in our lives than now to spend as much time as possible outside the United States. At some point, our son and daughter will both get married, and it’s likely that one or both of them will want to have children of their own. And when that happens, all bets are off: We can use that as an excuse—or a reason—to mix things up again, and by that point we may be ready and even eager to be there.

Instead of here.