At twenty-three, I had no concrete life plan, but I knew I was in the city I needed to be in with the man that I knew I wanted to be with. I was living out my dream in Paris with an awesome job and settling into life in Europe just fine. My boyfriend was Belgian but that only made it all the more interesting. Then we found ourselves at a crossroads, the kind we never saw coming.
I thought the hard part was leaving Texas behind, but what was coming would make that seem like an easy move. Six months into the first flush of our relationship, Laurens had a major work opportunity presented to him. He wanted to know:.
I knew next to nothing about Indonesia and my mind started imaging the far-off foreign world it would be. How would I fit into it? How would our relationship shape up if I were to drop everything and follow him thousands of miles away? On paper, it was a crazy idea, but I knew this guy was different. I trusted him. I wanted to be with him.
Paris was already far enough, and now their daughter was moving to some island called Sulawesi with a foreign man they had never met. I made the decision to join him and in a cloud of excitement, I had an optimistic outlook of what Southeast Asia could offer both of us personally and as a new couple.
I was in my early twenties after all, and given my love for impulsive travel, I was looking forward to the change and the adventure; I was also freaking out.
