Today is our last full day in New York City this year, as tomorrow we’ll be leaving for Melbourne. It was also absolute hell at work, so I’m looking forward to getting away even if I will still be working remotely. Sometimes, distance and space is all you need to function and get through chaos.

It’s been over eight years in New York now. I thought I’d be done with it in two to four years, but the years just keep piling up. Although there’s so much I love about it here, it feels good to leave it when it’s getting colder outside and the threat of snow is imminent. Snow is beautiful when I am inside a warm place looking out; when I am trekking through it, I feel miserable. I don’t think I would ever embrace the idea of living in an area that expected snow every year. When I think of shoveling snow and dealing with ice on a car, I just want to crawl into a hole and hibernate.