The doorbell rang while I was prepping the dining room table to get started with homeschool. When I opened the door, I found a Hello Fresh box sitting on my doorstep. I wasn’t a subscriber to Hello Fresh, but this was the second time someone’s box had accidentally been delivered to me. I picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen, contemplating what to do with it.

I could open it and enjoy it myself. After all, it wasn’t my fault it showed up here. But before I cut the box open, I decided to look up the address. The blue GPS line meandered its way to the destination and calculated the distance. The house was just one street over.

I sighed as I looked at the box of ingredients, knowing what needed to be done. I slipped my shoes on, scooped the box into my arms, and made my way to the neighbor’s house.

We started around the corner of West and Hortense. There’s a eucalyptus tree I've walked past hundreds of times. As if by instinct, I looked up at it as we passed. It danced with the wind against the bright blue sky the way it always does on afternoons in Southern California. The air smelled like fall, like back-to-school mornings, and trick-or-treat nights. The setting sun beat through the magnolia trees, the freshly mowed lawns smelled only the way freshly mowed lawns can, and school bells rang their afternoon song. Suddenly, I was back—walking to school with friends, coming too fast down the street corners on my razor scooter, getting nervous when we passed the cute boy’s house on family walks after dinner. 

My husband and I celebrated our wedding ceremony in the Dominican Republic, where I am from. Several hours later, we jumped on an airplane that would take us to Florida. 

Wait, what? Isn’t the DR the perfect place to honeymoon? It is, it is. But, we were getting married through the fiancé visa, and the marriage license had to be signed in the States for us to be legally married. So, we arrived in Florida and spent our wedding night in separate bedrooms because my dad had been clear we couldn’t live together until the license was signed. (Don’t say it—I know what you are thinking). 

I’m six years into living overseas, and I can already  see so many distinct seasons that have shaped our time here. How we’re spending our daily lives and who we’re doing it alongside now looks completely different than even just three years ago, despite having lived in the same neighborhood and worked at the same school our entire time here.