Dreams of the International Lifestyle

A few months ago, Writer Abroad was reading a blog when she came across someone familiar—herself. In the process of reading this blogger’s post, Writer Abroad realized something: she was living this person’s dream. And also, thankfully, living her own.

It only took 31 years.

But the truth is that living a dream like writing abroad isn’t always all that dreamlike—even if you have things like Swiss cheese and chocolate bars to chomp on.

First off, getting to the point where you are brave enough to pursue your dream can be painful in itself. For Writer Abroad, it involved a layoff, a lot of German paperwork (just say “nein”) and feigned fluency, as well as a number of soul searching days that involved being scared to say no to writing manuals for dentists.

Later, living the international life can get even messier and involve things like double taxation (aren’t you proud to be an American?), rejection (in this case no worries about double taxation), and fun things like doubt.

But no matter what, if you’re living your dream, you’re a happier person. Writer Abroad definitely smiles a lot more than before even though no one else in Switzerland smiles back.

Anyhow, Writer Abroad is tired of talking about herself. How did you come to live your dream? Was it a messy, doubt-ridden process too? Please share. Writer Abroad loves a little Schadenfreude. It is a German thing, after all. Prost.