Note: This is the first post in a series about two Americans working in tech and planning a move abroad.

✨ How We Got Here

I was born and raised in the middle — Joplin, Missouri — the buckle of the Bible Belt. From my earliest memories, I felt the world beyond calling to me.

We didn’t have cable — we were poor. But we had PBS. My family watched Nova, PBS NewsHour, Frontline, and American Experience. I watched Reading Rainbow, 3-2-1 Contact , and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (Who didn’t want to race across that map?)

Those shows opened windows to places I’d never seen and ideas I’d never heard. My curiosity grew, and my imagination soared with dreams of big cities and far-off lands.

But the farthest we ever traveled together as a family was 716 miles — by car — to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Fast forward to 2025. I’m married to a dual citizen of the EU. We visit Poland once a year. We’ve ridden two-humped camels through the Gobi Desert. We crave adventure. And honestly? We want more than America has to offer.

🥾 Small Steps to Big Moves

I’ll be honest — this first year has been overwhelming at times. The biggest hurdle has been accepting that we can do this. It feels like standing a few miles outside a mountain village, staring up at a peak we’re not sure we can climb.

So we made a list of what we wanted to accomplish in Year One.

Level up our education:

  • My wife enrolled in a Master’s program in Data Analytics.

  • I began learning Ruby and started regularly challenging myself again with JavaScript problem-solving.

Gain more confidence in Polish:

  • My wife was born in Poland and spent her first six years behind the Iron Curtain. She’s fluent, but she’ll need to expand her vocabulary for a professional setting.

  • I only began learning Polish in 2018 — just a few words at first. I got more serious in 2020, but let’s be real: Polish is hard, folks. This year, I enrolled in an official A1 language course.

And then, something shifted. Suddenly it felt like we’d made it to that mountain village, spent a warm night at a hostel, and were finally hiking toward the base of the climb.

We felt the movement of our plan. We both struggle with ADHD, and when there’s no movement in our lives, the boots feel heavier. The simple act of planning was movement — and the springboard we both needed to kick into high gear.

🧭 Looking at the Path Ahead

We’ve had to remind ourselves that Year One is meant to be made up of small steps. We’re on the path, but nowhere near the summit, and sometimes we forget to focus on the trail ahead instead of the mountain’s peak.

So we refocus, and ideate. We examine the immediate trail in front of us and begin to consider what Year Two might look like — starting with connecting to expats already living in Poland, continuing our language learning, and expanding our professional development.

The climb is daunting — that’s why this is a five-year plan. But shorter hikes — like agile sprints — are manageable, and they flow naturally with our professional lives and our ADHD brains, which thrive on momentum and quickly stall without it.

🌍 Moving and Shifting, One Step at a Time

This isn’t just a move — it’s a shift in how we live, think, and plan for our future. It’s an act of faith in ourselves, and in the idea that we don’t have to stay stuck just because we started here.
There’s a long trek ahead, but we’re walking it with intention, one step at a time.

In the next post, I’ll explore the realities of uncertainty. The world is volatile — Poland shares a border with Ukraine, and the future is anything but guaranteed.
What if we’re walking toward something that shifts beneath our feet? If only life had types and fallback values — can we TypeScript this plan?

These are the questions we’re sitting with — and that I’ll dive into next time.