The ending.

After 10 years in Barcelona, I lost my job.

Instead of starting over the same way, I decided to leave—and begin again.

I’m going to travel and send real letters from the road.

I’m inviting a small group to be part of the very beginning and the opportunity to follow along as a real-time memoir unfolds.

I didn’t expect my life in Barcelona to end like this.

Ten years is a long time to live anywhere. Long enough for a place to stop feeling foreign and start feeling like something else entirely—routine, familiar, almost invisible in its presence. Barcelona became that for me. Not just a city I lived in, but a rhythm I moved through without thinking.

There were small things I came to rely on. The same streets walked so often that they no longer required attention. Cafés where no one knew my name, but everything still felt known. The particular light in the late afternoon reflected off the buildings in a way that made the whole city feel warmer than it probably was.

It wasn’t dramatic. It was steady. Predictable. Mine.

And then, not long ago, it ended.

I lost my job.

There’s a strange quiet that follows something like that. Not immediate panic—at least not for me—but a kind of pause. As if everything you’ve been moving toward suddenly steps aside and leaves you standing still, unsure of what direction you were facing in the first place.

For a while, I did what most people do. I thought about staying. Finding something else. Rebuilding in the same place, with the same routines, just slightly rearranged. On paper, it made sense. It was the safe option. The logical one.

But something about it didn’t sit right.

It’s hard to explain exactly. It wasn’t urgency or excitement. It was quieter than that. More like a persistent thought that kept returning: you don’t have to do this the same way again.

So I started to consider the alternative.

Leaving.

Not just the job, but the structure that had formed around it. The life that, over time, had become comfortable enough that I stopped questioning it.

I wouldn’t call it a sudden decision. It came together slowly, almost reluctantly at first. But once the idea took hold, it didn’t really let go.

And eventually, it became clear.

I’m not going to stay.

Instead, I’m going to travel—slowly—and write from wherever I find myself. Not in the way we’ve all become used to, with posts and updates that disappear as quickly as they arrive. But in a way that feels more deliberate.

Letters.

Something you can hold. Something that arrives with a bit of time and distance built into it. Something that asks you to slow down, even if only for a few minutes.

This is the beginning of that.

I don’t have everything figured out. Not the exact route, not how it will all unfold. But for the first time in a while, that uncertainty doesn’t feel like a problem to solve. It feels like part of the point.

Barcelona will always be a part of my life. Ten years doesn’t disappear just because a chapter ends. But it is ending. And I can feel that clearly now.

What comes next is still open.

And in a way, that’s the most honest place to begin.