4inworld – Quitting Suburban Life for the Unknown

I won’t bore you with the tedious details of our preparations for leaving—it was a lot. At one point, I honestly thought that if social services had been listening in on our conversations, you two might’ve been removed from our care. We brainstormed all kinds of harebrained schemes: buying a used trailer and living on a beach selling sandwiches, joining the Peace Corps (I shit you not), getting a van and just traveling. Someone even suggested we buy a boat and sail around the world. That was absolutely out of the question. I’m still not sure what was more terrifying—the hazardous conditions of the open sea, or the idea of the four of us trapped together on a boat 24/7 – someone would have been thrown overboard for one reason or another!

We researched visas, calculated our net worth, and fantasized endlessly. But once we made the decision – to change, to just go -it still took two years to unravel the life we had built. Two houses and a condo to sell. Every last thing in them to offload. And then, we had to figure out how to make money

The idea of selling door and cabinet hardware evolved pretty naturally from your dad’s business in Cornelius into an online store. But remember: this was just after the “World Wide Web” phase. People weren’t really selling things online yet. Terms like digital nomad, e-commerce, and drop shipping weren’t even in our vocabulary.

Facebook was in its infancy, not yet the algorithmic beast it would become. Instagram didn’t exist or if it did – it wasn’t something we were aware of. Youtube was around, but it was mostly people doing “how to” videos or bloopers. Airbnb didn’t exist – and the idea of just staying at some strangers home was insane. In fact, once we settled on Italy (I will explain why later) we found that there were tons and tons of places that didn’t even have wifi or internet at all. We were navigating this clumsily, without a roadmap, trying to invent a new way to live.

So, fast forward. We had valued our net worth based on the equity in our homes—and then boom—the housing crisis hit, and everything went sideways. We went from being on top of our game to fighting from underneath it.

It was a case of terrible timing, but even so, we still wanted to go. So, we short sold the homes, held a couple of massive garage sales, and dumped most of our belongings. In the end, we didn’t walk away with much.

Your dad had been working on the website for over a year by then. It was live and technically working—but very, very slowly. We were getting maybe one or two orders a day, if that. The month before we actually flew out of the U.S. to Italy, we had quit our jobs. Our only income? The website. Our net profit for the entire month was just under $250. That was it.

A family of four, surviving on less than what most people spend at Walmart in a week.

And yet – we went for it. It was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. We had a little bit of savings, a tiny trickle of income, and a whole lot of… possible faith.

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Recalling Reactions

I’m trying to remember exactly how each of you reacted when we told you what we were doing. I think it was positive – but maybe that’s just my memory casting me in a kinder light, letting me believe I was more okay with it than I really was. I’ve found tons of notes to myself and emails to Ma and Pop where I wrote about how happy you both seemed, how much you were loving the idea. I’m not sure now if that’s how you truly felt, or if you were just being brave for our sake. But what I do remember is how positive you were—at least on the outside. And that meant everything. Whether it was genuine excitement or quiet support, it gave us the courage to keep going.

For now, I’m going to skip over the minutiae of preparation and the goodbye (which were hard and emotional), the endless packing, the incessant search for the right backpacks (which felt like it would never fucking end), and the tedious days leading up to our actual departure.

I’ll also skip over most of the reactions.

Like how mad Aunt Kerry was—how she kept saying that if she told me how she really felt, I’d hate her forever. I never fully understood what she meant by that… and to be honest, I was a little afraid to find out.

I was hurt. I was sad. But I was also determined. Determined to stay in my lane and follow whatever it was that was pulling me forward—even if it meant breaking her heart.

Through all of it, your dad was wonderful. He kept cheering us on and holding tight to the dream. And when I would waver—or panic (which, as you’ll see, happened a lot)—he was the one who brought me back to reality and reminded me we could do this. That support was priceless.

Because the truth is, there were plenty of people who were heartbroken about us leaving—Taylor, the Gils, the Rugerios.

And then there were the others. The ones who were rude, judgmental, and couldn’t wait to tell us what a massive mistake we were making.

Names redacted… for now.

But there were also the ones who were excited, supportive – even envious. Our biggest cheerleaders. We love them so much for being our champions!

There are so many side stories in all of that. Things people said. Reactions from the people whose opinions meant everything – like Ma, Pop, Kerry, Taylor, and Grams – and others whose opinions, frankly, we couldn’t give a rat’s ass about.

I’ll circle back to some of that later.

But for now, I just want to get to Italy. To the moment we left. To the beginning of our adventure.