Around nine months ago, I decided to move to Berlin, Germany. I am 36 years old, I have never lived outside the United States, and I don’t speak a bit of German (update: I speak a very little bit). I didn’t have a job lined up. I didn’t have some friend who was putting me up in a cheap place. I hadn’t done a ton of research about the process of immigrating. I had no plan for the logistics of moving. I just decided to do it.

I sold all of my posessions and condensed what I deemed the true necessities of my life down to three large checked suitcases, one carry-on suitcase, my messenger bag, and a guitar case — in the span of a month. There is no storage unit waiting for me back in America with my “stuff”, I don’t own a house, and I have no passive income stream letting me float by. I did this by the seat of my pants.

A random selection of the things that I brought with me:

• My Global kitchen knives (which have seen plenty of use here)
• Around 20 vinyl records (which have seen much less use)
• Around 20 books, including Being Elvis, The Sick Bag Song, This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends, and Truman (David McCullough’s biography of the atomic-era President, which I will read…. someday)
• A complete tea service set designed by Nick Cave
• Nine pairs of shoes
• Two Sonos One speakers
• A Fuji X-T3 camera
• My grandpa’s dinner diary (a notebook with ~20 years of special occasion menu planning and guest lists)
• A garlic press

How did I get here?

In the summer of 2023, I felt aimless. I had just quit a marketing role at a small startup, only three months on the job. I was single, living in a sleepy suburb of Seattle I had no attachments to, and I was very disillusioned about the prospect of continuing to grind out a paycheck to support a lifestyle that brought me no joy. That August, I decided on a whim to fly to Berlin and go to a trade show, IFA. Not because I love trade shows, but because I like the places they’re held and the people I see at them; people I consider friends. I managed to snag press credentials and get into a few events. I saw friends I hadn’t since the pre-COVID times and made a few connections that started conversations I felt might go somewhere.

One evening, I was sitting at a generically German restaurant — the kind of place I now rather specifically avoid — with an old journalist friend, Kris Carlon. Before the rest of our group arrived, unprompted, I blurted out to him “I think I’m going to move here.” I don’t remember his reaction (I’m sure it was supportive), but I suspect it’s the kind of thing that gets said a lot in Berlin by visitors between the months of May and September. The weather is gorgeous; green grass and lush trees beckon you stop and sit at every park bench. Bicycles, ice cream, and summer fits fill the streets with vital energy. Outdoor dining abounds. At the end of the evening, I told Kris and the rest of the group I was going to do it, I was moving here. I don’t know how seriously anyone took me at that moment; I don’t know how seriously I was taking myself. But once I gave oxygen to that idea, it became a fire that burned so bright in me that I couldn’t possibly extinguish it. I headed to Prague for a few days to finish out my trip, but before I flew back to Seattle, I’d already bought a ticket back to Berlin — one way.

I had a little over a month to sell everything I owned and pack up my life into a format suitable for air travel (if I gave myself a longer window, I’d chicken out). That month is a blur in my mind. Not least of which because I caught COVID (for the first time), leaving me with debilitating brain fog for weeks. I apologize to everyone for any conversation with me more than 5 minutes long in September 2023 — not because I was mean or hurtful to anyone, but because I was a cognitive mess. Between the mental rewiring I had to muster to make the big move and COVID then short-circuiting what connections remained, my tendency for tirades was dialed up to 11. I couldn’t stop talking, because I was trying desperately to walk myself through this huge, life-changing decision. But I had no idea what to actually say, what single sentence would finally convince me that I was doing the right thing. I weaved in and out of topics like I was in a police chase with my own inner monologue (and generally succeeded at making conversations exhausting for all involved). I know no one holds it against me, but I still feel a bit ashamed for not seeing how obviously compromised my mental state was at the time. Had I not contracted an actual-mind-virus, I like to think I’d have handled this period with a bit more… clarity.

Brain fog or not, I still woke up every morning, checked my email, updated my myriad online sales listings, and boxed up donations. And by the end of every evening, my possessions had dwindled a bit more. There were milestones, but in hindsight, surprisingly few stand out: I remember getting a free suitcase from my friend James, storing all my bags temporarily at another friend’s apartment (thanks, Aiman), and waking up to find a bunch of stuff had been stolen out of my garage one evening (not-so-thanks, thieves). I distinctly recall watching all my overpriced, oversized furniture exit out the front door and feeling an immense emotinoal weight lifted from me, almost in real time. And during that month, nearly every night, I would sit on my stairway, almost in a trance — my eyes fixed on a horizon that wasn’t there, having the same conversation with myself. “Am I actually doing this? Am I going crazy? Should I stop now and just give up on this fantasy?” 

My drive seemed almost inexhaustible. And given how tired I felt at the end of each day, it would have been so easy to just give up. More concerningly, the act of abandoning most of my material possessions was leaving me feeling profoundly unmoored. And in hindsight, what I feared was some kind of minor mental break was actually physical and emotional exhaustion; I was clearly pushing myself too hard and too fast. But I pressed on, and one week before I was set to leave the country, I was done. I’d sold or disposed of nearly everything. My material life was lined up in a neat row of suitcases along the wall of a nearly-empty house.

That’s when it became concrete to me, the “this is really happening” moment. Suddenly, that month had meaning. It had purpose. I could see how it brought me closure I hadn’t fully known I’d needed. It was a goodbye to a life I’d left behind over a year before, when I moved to Seattle, but whose ghost lived on in all of the things I’d dragged up to that place with me. Those things were gone, and therefore, so was the lingering echo of that life. My unmoored feeling wasn’t just the product of material dissolution, but of a greater psychological resolution: The end of something old as much as the start of something new. But I’d spent a month moving at a truly blistering pace, largely ignorant I was on the precipice of these Big Somethings. And I was very, very tired.

I’d built in a week-long buffer for my final act of possession disposal — I had a car to get rid of. A very annoying, needy, and difficult-to-sell car. Then, I’d fly to Minneapolis to see a concert by one of my all-time favorite musicians, Nick Cave, before returning to Seattle and setting off to Germany. But first came the road trip.

I would drive from Seattle to Los Angeles, via Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. I love driving, I always have. And I could have made that trip in an old Toyota Tercel, and it’d have been nearly as special. But barreling down empty stretches of interstate in my Mercedes SL55 is a memory that’ll stick for a lifetime. I left Seattle, cresting the evergreen-blanketed Cascade Mountains, down to the rolling hills of American heartland in Central and Eastern Washington, and I stopped for a night in the town of Walla Walla.

The next morning, I was in the truly remote corners of Southeast Washington and Northeast Oregon, places where the old American West still seems alive today. I pulled over at a bridge and watched a crystal clear creek flow next to a set of railroad tracks, just basking in the emptiness of that place. And then there was Utah, where I stayed with my old friend Jeff Beck and his family for an evening. I continued southward and made a detour at Bryce Canyon National Park, a stunning natural monument I wish I’d had days to explore, but for which I could only spare one far-too-short hour. It’s a place I know I’ll return to someday. When I reached Las Vegas, I stayed in one of those hilariously-oversized suite hotel rooms at the Delano on the strip, my air-conditioningless and heat-soaked Mercedes increasingly unsuited to the local climate. Finally, I was headed to LA, where I met an old friend who’d promised to take the car off my hands. We sat at a cafe in Venice Beach and caught up for a few hours. That night, I visited my favorite neighborhood, ate at my favorite restaurant, and said goodbye to the city my heart will always be in, even if my life may not. For the first time in a month, I felt at peace with myself, and with my choice.

On October 9, 2023, I landed in Berlin. My three first months in Germany feel like half a lifetime ago. I worked for a short time as a freelance editor at an automotive publication — I even got to go on a few press trips and review some cars. But the process of adapting to a new way of life in a new country after abandoning nearly my entire material existence was a lot to manage. I felt aimless, and the brutally dark and gray Berlin winter certainly didn’t help matters. Then, I caught COVID again, this time with a nasty fever and a skull-splitting headache. I lost almost all taste and smell for weeks, and even now, 6 months later, I still feel those senses aren’t at 100% (though they’re getting close). Worse, the brain fog was back with a vengeance, and it made my world feel even smaller. I was isolated; I thought about going “home” — wherever that was — though I never found myself activley planning an escape.

When I felt mentally recovered, it was clear to me that my freelance journalism gig wasn’t a permanent career path, and finding my way in a new country would require a proper job in that country. By a series of fortuitous circumstances and connections (thank you, Sebastian), I landed a role at HERE Technologies, where I work today. Shortly after securing that job, I signed a one-year lease on an apartment (no small feat in Berlin as a newcomer with no German rental history, let me tell you) and received my German work visa and residence permit. I walk to supermarkets in my neighborhood to do my shopping. I can easily get around the city on public transit or my bicycle, which I often ride to the HERE offices in Mitte (and will again, when I get that flat tire fixed). I have a few friends here. And I’ve spent some time exploring Germany, getting to know a place I’ve only just started to feel I can call “home.”

I started writing this piece over 3 months ago. It’s only now I feel ready to finish it, because it’s only now that I feel one chapter of my life is at an end — a period I can see for what it was, one of intense transition. Looking back, I’d certainly have done some things differently (particularly, I’d have planned the professional portion of my move with a bit more seriousness). But I don’t regret my choices, because they led me to where I sit today. I am happier than I have been in a long time. My life isn’t perfect — far from it! — but for the first time in memory, I don’t feel like I’m on just another stepping stone to “something better.” I’m living the life I have right now, not in pursuit of the one I hope to have tomorrow.