Sometimes the best decisions in life don’t make sense on paper. They’re not backed by spreadsheets or pros and cons lists. They’re just… a feeling. A knowing. A voice inside you that says, “This is it. This is what you need to do.”

That’s how I ended up in Spain.

The Summer That Changed Everything

Last summer, I visited Spain. Not for any particular reason—no family connections, no job opportunity, just a vacation. But something happened during that trip. I fell in love. Not with a person, but with the culture, the pace of life, the way people seemed to actually live instead of just exist.

I came back to the States and couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to be there. Not just visit—live there.

Here’s where it gets interesting: I decided to move to a city I had never even visited before. I know, it sounds absolutely insane when I say it out loud. Who does that? Who packs up their entire life and moves to a place they’ve only seen in photos?

But I had this gut feeling. This deep, unshakeable knowing that it was the right city for me. And I’ve learned to trust my gut, even when my brain is screaming that I’ve lost my mind.

So I did it. I made the leap.

Finding My New Normal (Or: The Adventure of Not Knowing Where Anything Is)

The biggest challenge I faced wasn’t the language barrier or the paperwork or any of the dramatic things you might expect. It was something much more mundane and yet somehow more disorienting: figuring out a new normal.

Think about it—at home, you know everything without thinking. You know your schedule, your routine, which grocery store has the best produce, where to get your coffee, what time the post office closes. Your life runs on autopilot in the best way.

Then you move abroad and suddenly you don’t know anything.

Where do I buy laundry detergent? Which store has the products I need? What are the opening hours here? Why is everything closed in the afternoon? How do I set up a doctor’s appointment? Where do people actually hang out in this neighborhood?

It’s exhausting in a way that’s hard to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. You’re making hundreds of tiny decisions every single day, figuring out systems from scratch, and nothing feels automatic anymore.

But here’s how I overcame it: I looked at it as an adventure instead of a problem. Every time I felt frustrated or overwhelmed, I’d reframe it. Not “Ugh, I can’t find anything in this store,” but “I’m exploring and learning something new.” Not “This is so different from home,” but “This is interesting—look at how they do things here.”

And most importantly, I didn’t allow myself to compare. That was huge. The moment you start comparing everything to “how it was back home,” you’ve already lost. You’ll be miserable. Because yes, things are different—that’s literally the entire point of moving to another country.

The Identity Shift: When Work Isn’t Who You Are

Living abroad has completely changed my perspective on life-work balance. Actually, let me be more specific: it shattered my old perspective and rebuilt it from the ground up.

Back in the States, I had my own business. I was the classic entrepreneur—hustling, grinding, building, always thinking about the next move. My work was my identity. If you asked me who I was, I would have told you about what I did for a living. My worth was tied up in my productivity, my success, my achievements.

I didn’t even realize how much my life revolved around work until I removed myself from that environment.

Now, I’m a student in Spain. I live a simple life. And here’s the wild part: I talk about everything but work. My conversations are about the market I discovered, the beach I visited, the book I’m reading, the people I’ve met, the festival happening this weekend.

At first, this felt uncomfortable. Like I was missing something. Like I wasn’t doing enough. But gradually, I realized: this is enough. I am enough, without the business, without the hustle, without constantly proving my worth through productivity.

Spanish culture has this beautiful approach to life where work is just one part of who you are—not the defining part. People work to live; they don’t live to work. And being immersed in that mindset has been incredibly healing for someone who used to measure her value by her output.

The Most Important Lesson: You Can’t Rush Anything

If I could go back and tell myself one thing before I moved here, it would be this: when you get here, you can’t rush anything. Everything takes time, and the more you try to rush things, the worse your experience will be.

I’m a doer. A planner. Someone who likes to make things happen quickly and efficiently. So you can imagine how Spain tested every part of my personality.

Things that would take a day in the US take a week here. Sometimes a month. Bureaucracy moves at its own pace. People operate on a different timeline. “Mañana” (tomorrow) is a real thing, and you have to learn to be okay with it.

The more you go with the flow and try to live like the people who actually live here, the easier life becomes. When I stopped fighting against the pace and started moving with it, everything shifted. I stopped feeling frustrated and started feeling… peaceful.

There’s a rhythm to life here that you can’t force. You have to surrender to it. And in that surrender, you find a kind of freedom you didn’t know existed.

My Advice: Drop Your Expectations at the Border

Here’s my biggest tip for anyone considering making a similar move: make sure you have zero expectations about how your life will change, and just allow whatever happens to happen.

I mean it. Zero expectations.

If you set expectations—about how easy it’ll be, how quickly you’ll make friends, how perfect your apartment will be, how magical every day will feel—you will not be happy once you get here. You’ll be disappointed. Frustrated. Wondering why reality doesn’t match the Instagram version you created in your head.

Everything is different than you could ever imagine. The good things are different. The hard things are different. The mundane, everyday things are different. So just enjoy the journey and don’t stress about having it all figured out.

Sometimes it feels so stressful when you first arrive. The overwhelm is real. The moments of “what have I done” are real. The days when you miss home so badly it physically hurts are real.

But you can’t allow yourself to get stuck there. You have to keep moving forward, keep exploring, keep trusting that you made this decision for a reason.

What I’ve Learned About Myself

Moving to Spain has taught me that I’m more adaptable than I thought. More resilient. More capable of building a life from scratch.

It’s taught me that identity is fluid—that I can be someone completely different from who I was in the States, and both versions are valid. Both are me.

It’s taught me that sometimes the scariest decisions lead to the most peaceful outcomes. That trusting your gut isn’t reckless—it’s the bravest thing you can do.

It’s taught me that a simple life isn’t a lesser life. That slowing down isn’t giving up. That there’s profound richness in doing less but experiencing more.

I don’t know what my future holds. I don’t know if I’ll stay in Spain forever or if this is just one chapter in a longer story. But I know that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

And that gut feeling that brought me here? It was right.

To Anyone Considering the Leap

If you’re thinking about moving abroad, and you have that voice inside you saying “do it”—listen to it.

Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s uncertain. Yes, you’ll have moments where you question everything.

But you’ll also have moments of pure magic. Moments where you’re sitting at a café on a random Tuesday afternoon, and you realize you’re living a life you once only dreamed about. Moments where you feel more like yourself than you ever did in your “normal” life back home.

Don’t wait for the perfect time. Don’t wait until you have everything figured out. Don’t wait until you feel completely ready, because you never will.

Just trust your gut and go.

The life you’re meant to live might be waiting for you in a city you’ve never even visited yet.

It was for me.

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This is my story—from business owner to student, from constant hustle to simple living, from knowing everything to figuring it all out again. I followed a gut feeling to a city I’d never seen, and it changed my entire life.

Sometimes the best adventures start with the craziest decisions