The Countless Lives I’ve Lived

Musings on moving a lot, climbing the career ladder, and keeping a personal life along the way

Illustration by okalinichenko on Adobe Stock, Edited by Author

I’m getting married next year. My fiancé and I just celebrated our eight-year anniversary; it’s an exciting celebration of our relationship that has been a long time in the making.

Since we have been together for so long, we’ve changed jobs a lot, lived in three different states together, and generally experienced a lot of life. We’re both creatives who have had a long, bumpy journey to not being the starving artist archetypes. Finding work that is fulfilling and checking those practical boxes of being able to pay the rent every month is no easy task.

I’m looking forward to our big day and planning countless ways to make it special, but the process is also making me very introspective. We recently designed our save-the-dates and sent them out to all our dear friends and family across the world. And yes — literally across the world. We mailed save-the-dates to Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Australia.

We’ve worked so many different jobs. We’ve lived in such dramatically different places and circumstances. In a way, it’s almost like we’ve each lived out little chunks of entirely different lives in these years.