In the immortal words of [Ferris Bueller](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1011330-life-moves-pretty-fast-if-you-don-t-stop-and-look): > Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. and boy, has life moved pretty fast since 2019. I've had to stop, and reflect on where my life is now, and make some big changes. I'm in a new phase of life, and need to be somewhere else right now. ## Back to the UK Let's get the key point out the way quick: my family are moving back to the UK. We'll be moving in with my in-laws for 6-12 months while we save up to buy a house. I'm tired of renting, and being beholden to someone else about how I live. I'll be working for [Kraken.tech](https://kraken.tech/), remotely, from Suffolk. Though I intend to spend at least two days a week in their London office. I'll be staying with my brother in London one night a week. I miss him. ## Aotearoa New Zealand My partner and I moved to [Aotearoa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa) in October 2019 with the ambition to find a quiet corner of the world and build friends, buy a house, and then eventually start a family. We had visited previously and we were enamoured by the wildlife and the nature of the place. It is like no where else on earth. ## Pandemic Six months after we had settled in, the world entered the [COVID-19](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic) pandemic. In New Zealand: we closed our borders fast and had a lock down of roughly 55 days. I remember keeping a note of the fridge and marking off each day. After the lockdown, New Zealand did something unique: the country opened back up. We were one of the few places in the world that were virus free. There were almost no tourists and my partner and I took advantage of this and explored the country without thousands of other people trying to do the same. It was bliss. ## A Child Something happened that meant we had to change our plans. We had to have a child, and soon, if we ever wanted children. It meant that when our son was born we had practically zero support - no friends or family there to give us a break, to run errands for us, to help look after the baby. The past 18 months have been the most difficult time of our life. We have an incredible and beautiful boy for it, but it has cost us a lot of our own lives. ## The new phase of life We would discuss daily what we could do to get the support we needed. It dawned on us pretty fast, and I think we denied it for a while because we wanted to make the current situation work. But the truth was: the support we needed was back home in the UK. So we've decided to move back, spend time with our family, raise our son, and see our old friends again. And this time things will be different. I am [[Lessons from 10 hours of flight training| training to be a pilot now]], and we've both picked jobs that give us a lot of freedom and flexibility to enjoy our home life first, instead of finding time amongst busy work obligations. I'm excited to return home, and for the next phase of life. Thanks for reading this article, if you'd like to get in touch you can reach me through: - [Fosstodon](https://fosstodon.org/@proteanmachine) - [Email](mailto:[email protected]) - [GitHub](https://github.com/phalt) Paul