How much does where you live shape who you are?

Why I started a blog about being an American living part-time in Croatia

I turned 54 this year. If you had asked me whether I thought I’d be living in Europe even just a few years ago, I would have laughed.

Aside from a high school exchange trip to France and spending my first honeymoon in London, I’d hardly traveled that far. (I never thought I’d utter the phrase “first honeymoon” either, but who does?)

I was born in Boston but always wondered if I could call myself a true New Englander. My parents divorced when I was in first grade and my mom—after getting permission from my Dad—moved me and my two older sisters back to Pennsylvania where she was from. 

Trying to fit in, I absorbed each region’s unwritten rules so I’d appear to be a local. When I visited my Dad in Framingham, MA, it was: Don’t say hoagie, it’s a sub. Back in Jenkintown, PA with my mom, it was: Don’t say frappe, it’s a milkshake.

I couldn’t help feeling like an outsider. The divorce and the move were traumatic and I remember feeling so DIFFERENT for being the only kid in my class who wasn’t born at Abington Hospital and whose father lived in another state.

And so, I never “pah-ked my cah” or drank a glass of “wudder.” Or at least I never said I did unless I was making a joke. As a result, It’s not uncommon for people to think I’m from the Midwest.

The pull of being considered a New Englander was strong, so I chose a college in Boston, and after spending a few years in New Jersey post-graduation convinced my fiance we should move to Massachusetts, where we stayed until he got a job offer near Boulder, CO 11 years later.

At that point, I was feeling restless. A mom I’d recently met told me she didn’t think we could be friends because “I’m Dunkin’ Donuts and you’re Starbucks.” A joke to be sure, but it gave my inner child angst. The eighth Dunkin’ Donuts moving into our town just as we were moving out seemed like a sign I was making the right choice.

All I knew about Boulder was that the TV show Mork & Mindy was set there and it was a yoga hub. With two children under seven, I decided I could make anywhere work if there was a yoga studio, a Target, a Starbucks, and a Unitarian Universalist church. I’d figure out the rest.

Most people we told about the move were stunned and spent years asking, “So when are you coming back?” For the most part, New Englanders stay in New England. But my father, a diehard New Englander himself, had a more philosophical reaction to the news: the West was “invented” for starting over. I was turning 37, an age where, according to him, most people go through a pivotal change in their lives.

Colorado felt like a state I could call my own—it belonged to neither my mother nor my father. It was also completely different from “back East,” a term I only learned after moving away from there. Westerners consider the entire Northeastern seaboard to be one and the same. Suddenly, the culture wars from my childhood faded away. 

And so, I went from living where people judged you by where you came from to living where most everyone came from somewhere else. Colorado’s population was climbing by the day and the bumper stickers were keeping score. 

I loved Boulder’s earthy crunchy vibe and how unloaded asking people where they were from was. Ten years later, I was still in Colorado, single after getting divorced from my high school sweetheart, raising two teenagers, and living in the first house I bought all by myself. I was also trying my damndest to stay employed as a copywriter. 

That last bit was why I pulled into my driveway one late afternoon. I had just finished a contract gig in Boulder and was back to freelancing from home. Just as I exited my car, a man came running up to me, and said, “Excuse me, I’m recently divorced and looking for a house for sale in your neighborhood. Do you know of one?”

My first thought was, how recently divorced? By that point, I had learned you didn’t want to be the first person someone dated following a breakup. I told him I didn’t know of a house but I gave him my card, saying he could email me and I’d connect him with my realtor.

A few weeks later, during Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to deactivate my Match.com account and saw that I had paid for a six-month membership. I guess I must be at least part New Englander—not to mention ambivalent about my decision to never date again—because I was frugal enough to re-open my profile for the weekend to “see what happens.” 

I came up as a match for the man from my driveway. He sent me a long, charming message. After our momentous second dinner date where he gave me a card with my exact favorite poem in it, we started dating and I knew it was serious. I can’t remember the exact moment when I learned he was from Croatia, but I do know I had to look up where it was on a map.

After my first trip to meet his family, we began visiting Croatia every summer, spending most of our time in the heart-shaped peninsula known as Istria. Part of Italy until World War II, Istria is known for medieval hilltop towns, truffle hunting, olive oil, and its renowned Malvazija and Teran wines. It’s often compared to Tuscany and Provence.

We are building this traditional Istrian stone house.

Like many people, the pandemic made me consider the rest of my life. When the world first opened back up, we took a leap and bought a traditional stone house in Istria with an eye toward retirement. We’re now almost finished with the rebuild and plan to split our time between the small village where our house is located and the U.S.

My must-have moving list is different these days. My husband and I are empty nesters who work remotely—no worries about commutes or school systems. My only requirement this time around was that we couldn’t live too far from a decent grocery store.

I’m also far more comfortable in my own skin. I know I will never truly be an Istrian. For one thing, people here take one look at me and assume I’m German. (It’s a popular vacation spot for Germans, and I am German on my mother’s side.) I called this blog Accidental Istrian because it almost feels as if I’ve been training to be an expat my whole life. 

That is to say, I’m finally OK with being an outsider. You learn so much more about the world—and yourself—when you have an open heart and give yourself permission to belong just the way you are. 

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