Neither Here Nor There

Well, today's post is going to be a bit more on the personal side than usual. I'm hoping it'll have some eye-opening effect, or, if that should fail, I'm hoping for some comments, to know what you think ;)

The situation is the following. Two and a half years ago, my boyfriend and I decided to make a big move: pack our belongings in sunny Spain and move to sunny California!

For Visa reasons, we decided to go back to school, so I decided to go back to college, taking classes in fashion, screen printing and jewelry.

I was a frustrated photographer and graphic designer, and hoping to bring some sense into my life. Mikki moved here for his music, a pretty awesome nu metal band, called Loyal Enemy.

Over this past years living here in Los Angeles, I believe we have both learned a bunch and evolved a lot on a professional level as well as on a personal one.

Believe me, it has not always been easy. We went through some rough personal times: being so far away from the people who are closest, making new friends, a roommate situation gone awfully wrong, just to name the essentials.

But after the first hard year, the friends came, and so did some successes: Mikki has played some pretty amazing gigs; I finally got the guts to start my own business, with all the self-doubt and pride that involves.

To make a long story short, our student visas expire this summer and it seems about time that we made a decision as to where we want to spend the next years of our lives. Believe me, this is being extremely hard.

Although our choice wouldn't have to be final (we are not necessarily deciding where we are spending the rest of our lives) I still have to admit that as the years go by, I'm feeling a strong urge to nest :) Yes, I admit it: I want a home, a dog and a family!

So I kind of do have the feeling that whichever decision we make, it's going to be a bit more on the long-term side, rather than just choosing where we want to live for the next year.

Unfortunately, the more we think about the pros and cons, the more pros we have for each location - instead of making everything clearer, everything is getting foggier all the time!

I feel as if we were choosing between giving personal and professional life more importance, because in one continent we have our folks close by and in the other we have more chances to succeed professionally - that is as long as we get the necessary visas! At the same time Europe could provide great alternative business opportunities without the nerve-wracking visa situation, but we have made many very dear friends in the US as well...

I guess you get where I'm coming from.

So my question for you is: do you live far away from where you grew up? Did you decide to leave everything behind and just jump into a new life far away and never looked back?

And how many years do you need to be living somewhere to call it "home"?