What A Year

November 5, 2023 was the last day we were in England as a family before moving back to the US. What a year it has been. In the last twelve months we’ve moved continents, graduated high school, bought a house, moved to a new state, changed jobs twice, and adopted another cat. And then, on November 5, 2024, America decided to buy a ticket for the Trump Rodeo, round 2.

“Do you miss London?” people ask me. Yes. Regularly, especially when I see a Tottenham or Brentford match and think “I could have been at that one.” Also when chatting with friends and thinking “we should nip out to the pub.” Also when America elects a guy who talks about his political rivals getting shot. But at the same time, all the very good family, job, and education-related reasons that compelled us to come back are still true.

The eldest child was able to finish her senior year of high school in the US at the school where she started kindergarten all those years ago. That included senior photos, senior prom, and graduation. The younger child was able to play on the high school soccer team and get involved in ice skating, a sport she’s come to love. I don’t know that the education is better here vs there. The way the kids describe it, it’s less stressful here. You have more freedom to choose interesting classes here and to pivot if you realize you don’t enjoy what you’re studying. Classes are overall more structured in England, and extra-curriculars are more varied in America. I’d say that education for our corner of England up to about 9th grade is probably stronger, but the pressure on kids in 10th and 12th grade is much higher than it is here.

The house and new state go hand in hand. We’ve settled in the Kansas City suburbs. We bought a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood, but we miss being able to walk down to Twickenham High Street to swing by the fruit stall and the butcher. I miss catching a train home after a football match and a pint or four. We recently went to the Nelson Atkins Museum, and it was super nice, but we couldn’t help compare it to the museums in London and say things like “well, the Brits stole way better artifacts from Egypt,” or “the impressionist exhibit at the Tate Modern was so much bigger.” Actually the second sentence is a lie. The Impressionist exhibit at Nelson Atkins was super legit. Big up, KC.

What is undeniably better about living in an American suburb is the space and the “niceness.” Our house is not 140 years old like our first place in London was. It doesn’t have a mildew problem. It’s twice the size of the London house. It has a yard! It cost us less than half as much as buying in London would have. And we’re 3-4 hours of driving to see family, not 18 hours of taxis and flights. (We’re even about 20 minutes from one of my cousins.)

I managed to get out to Kansas Motor Speedway with said cousin and take in a race. It was an experience. I’m not in a rush to get back, but I enjoyed the day out and would consider going again. It helps to have someone who is very knowledgeable about the sport and can explain the nuances. I’ll have to take him to soccer sometime and return the favor, but maybe with less knowledge about the local team.

Changed jobs twice? Yeah… The first time was looking to do something different after 13 years at the old place. I landed at another insurance technology company doing some neat things with AI. Then that turned into doing some neat things with AI plus some not-so-neat things with mainframe to cloud migrations, which turned into just doing not-so-neat things with mainframe to cloud migrations. I’ve moved on to a job at an insurance company where I’m back to doing neat things with technology, including AI.

Another cat? Yeah, so recently I had another birthday (they just keep happening and I can’t work out how to make them stop), and the girls decided that I should receive a cat for my birthday. This is what they told me. I don’t believe them, precisely, but the cat is still here. He’s roughly 8 weeks old, and basically a terror. He’s super cute, but he’s also very much a kitten. He lives in my office where he can be supervised, so I’ve taken to wearing old jeans and multiple layers of shirts to protect myself from the needles on his paws when he tries to climb me. With a brother named Fezzik, it seemed only appropriate that he be named Inigo Montoya.

The writing has been slower this year. I’ve written a few short stories and had a couple of sales, but I’ve been distracted by everything else and taken comfort in video games and reading. I feel like I have many more short stories and novels in me, so that’s something I’ll get back to doing.

The running is in a similar state to the writing. I’ve been doing 10-15 miles a week with more when the weather is cooperative. I did not appreciate the heat and humidity of the Midwest. I had plans to run the KC Marathon, which turned into plans to run the KC half-marathon, which turned into running a 5k with Carissa and our cousin’s wife. I finished in 24:40, which was good enough for second in my age group. They even gave me a special medal for it. I guess the secret to medaling at races is to move out of London and run in much, much smaller events.

So here we are in the waning days of autumn, wondering how dark the winter will be. All I know for sure is that the sun will rise tomorrow, and there will be work that needs to be done.