Big Moves Incoming

Back in 2016, after spending five years living and working in Greece, I moved back to the U.S. and started a brand new chapter. Erin — my girlfriend at the time, now my wife — and I moved into a small apartment together on Cape Cod. It was around then that I decided to switch gears and start my journey into software engineering.

After a whirlwind of events — a coding bootcamp, a startup internship, and landing my first real job as a Software Engineer at Wayfair — Erin and I decided it was time for something fresh. On January 1st, 2018, we packed up everything we owned into my truck and drove cross-country to San Diego, CA.

San Diego felt like home almost immediately. Even though I was unemployed for the better part of that year, and didn't land a steady job until after our first son, Nixon, was born, we loved the life we were building. We had dreams — big ones — of setting up a forever life there.

Over the next few years, our family grew. Bowie and Ollie joined the crew, and suddenly we had three little boys in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. At the same time, my job started feeling less secure, and rumors of the company shutting down got louder. When the fear became too big to ignore, and the walls of our small apartment started to feel even tighter, we made a tough call: move back east to Cape Cod to regroup.

We landed back in Truro, Massachusetts, where I was lucky enough to live rent-free in my childhood home. It was a blessing — free housing, free childcare help, and a little breathing room to figure out what came next.

Of course, life threw its curveballs. My job eventually was terminated, and once again, I found myself unemployed. Thankfully, the second stint didn't last long — three months later, I was back working again. But even as we tried to make it work in Massachusetts, something always felt a little off. We looked at houses all over the state, trying to picture our future. Nothing clicked. The pull back to San Diego never really went away.

Fast forward to a random week before Erin's work trip to L.A. — we stumbled across a small house listing in our old neighborhood. Erin joked about checking it out. I didn't joke back. I said, "Why not?" Erin changed her flight to San Diego, we met the owner, toured the house, and within a few days, signed a lease.

This time feels different. We have a three-bedroom house now, but it's still small — small enough that the chaos of three young boys (and a two-year-old puppy, Carmy) will echo through every room.

It's scary. It's exciting. It's everything in between.There are a million unknowns ahead of us: jobs, schools, friends, the cost of everything... but there's also hope. Hope that this time, we're not just starting over. We're building something permanent.

Maybe it won't be perfect. It probably won't. But maybe — just maybe — this time we're coming home for good.

Thanks for reading, and if you're ever standing at a crossroads like we were — scared, unsure, but hopeful — just know that sometimes the second (or third) time around is when everything starts to make sense.