At 38, my life looked fine from the outside.

Steady job. A relationship. An apartment. And this low-level, constant feeling that I was slowly disappearing inside all of it.

I was a receptionist in a job that had stopped meaning anything. I was in a relationship that had done the same. And somewhere along the way I had stopped asking whether this was really the life I wanted and started just getting through the days.

I spent a year saving, planning, and quietly preparing. Then I handed in my resignation, sold everything I owned, and bought a one-way ticket. I gave myself one year to travel the world and figure out what came next.

That was 2018. I traveled through Southeast Asia and Europe, taught English in a school in Malaysia, and kept going long after that one year was up. Then COVID hit and I came home and spent ten months with family, waiting for borders to reopen.

When they did, I found an expat group on Facebook talking about Albania. A woman who was already living there had built a community around life in Saranda a small beach town on the Ionian Sea I’d never heard of. I started following the group, got to know the community, made friends, and one of those friendships led to everything. Her boyfriend was a leasing agent. He found me an apartment. I sent a $100 deposit and bought a one-way ticket.

My family thought I had completely lost my mind.

I landed in Saranda and it felt right almost immediately. I’ve been here for over five years now. I have an apartment I love, a routine I enjoy, and a life that fits me better than anything I had before.