Guest Post by Kristi Goldrick:

I came to visit Chris and Caroline in Hawaii in April of 2021.  My purpose was a vacation – simple as that.  While I was here visiting, we did as you do on vacation…” I could live here” “Wouldn’t that be awesome to live here?”, all in jest of course. 

Caroline suggested I come back for another visit in October for my 40th birthday.  I could invite friends along; it would be so fun.  So, I left with a plan of hopefully being back in October, a short 6 months away.  

I’m not necessarily a super public person. I don’t share all the details of my personal life with everyone and sometimes even close friends have accused me of not sharing very much.

So it might seem odd that I get on my very-public blog and share things that are incredibly personal.

But I don’t see it as odd and I intend to share more about our struggle with infertility and another pretty personal topic in the near future: my 30-year-long battle with depression.

A year, wow.

It certainly doesn’t feel like we’ve lived in Hawaii for a year. Or should I say Hawaiʻi. (I’ve been here a year - I know better.) This year has flown by, a kind of blur of time smashed together. Blame COVID, or more likely, that we’re really enjoying ourselves. I think it’s the latter, despite it currently being March-the-five-hundred-and-somethingth-twenty-twenty.

Is it just me, or does it seem impossible that it is October already?  We are just a few days from our 1-year anniversary of arriving in Hawaii, and that doesn’t seem possible either. 

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen a face that keeps popping up. Our friend, Kristi, moved to Hawaii on August 30th and is living with us while she gets settled.

Chris and I were sitting on the lanai during a break from work. I was playing on my phone and he was “resting his eyes.” I noticed I got a new email, so I pulled it up and saw it was from the Hawaii State Bar. It was an automated message telling me that a new document had been posted in my account. This happens regularly and results weren’t supposed to be back until the end of October, so I didn’t think anything about it.

It’s been over 6 months since I’ve written here, and while there is lots to catch you up on, there was an anniversary of sorts this week that I need to get off my chest.  

Tuesday morning, September 21st, Facebook reminded me of the following post I made on September 21, 2020.

Chris and I were on the beach last week. The weather was gorgeous. My best friend was visiting from NC and was in her chair next to me. The waves were crashing in front of us and my toes were buried in the sand. I looked at Chris and said, “our life is fucking awesome.”

So that’s how we’re doing. I never intended to be away from this space for so long, but overall we’re doing great. We’re settling in and continue to try to enjoy everything this place has to offer.

We spent another amazing weekend exploring Oahu. On Saturday, we went to a new (for us) beach. We went to the beach at Barbers Point, near Barbers Point Coast Guard Station. It was a beautiful afternoon, although it won’t be a beach near the top of our list to return to. I was explaining to my parents that for a beach to be a “favorite” here, it has to have more than just the ocean and sand. We now require other beautiful scenery that we can enjoy around the the water as well. I know, we’re becoming total divas.

I get asked, pretty regularly, about where we live in Hawaii, which island, which city, how far away from Honolulu we are, etc.  I thought I would put all the answers to that in one place.  So here’s all the answers to those questions.  Everything in this post is accurate, unless I get it wrong.  

When we moved to Hawaii, our plan was to rent for at least a year, maybe more, while we got to know the island and figured out where we wanted to live. We wanted to enjoy NOT being homeowners for a little while and be really thoughtful and intentional about where we wanted to live. That was the plan. But then, you already know how I feel about plans now.

I really liked doing the (few) Monday Musings posts I did back over the summer because it was a bit like a brain dump. As we are getting more and more settled here in Hawaii (still sounds crazy to say that), I am going to bring them back.

Yesterday, Chris and I had our first true beach day. We left the dogs at home, packed up our cooler, towels, sunscreen, sun shade and beach chairs, and headed to Ewa Beach Park, also known as Pu’uloa Beach Park (and no, I don’t know how to pronounce it). We set up our beach shade and chairs, poured water into our Yetis (the beer came later), sat down, put our feet in the sand, and stared. It wasn’t very crowded, there was a lovely breeze keeping us cool, and the water looked spectacular. A bunch of kids set up a ladder in the surf right in front of us and climbed to the top and then would jump into a wave as it rolled by. It was a picture perfect day.

Tomorrow is the day. We arrived in Honolulu on Thursday, October 8th, and as of tomorrow, Friday, October 23rd, we will be free to (safely) move about the island. Chris took the day off work and our plan is to get up early and go to the beach to watch the sunrise, then drive around Oahu to start exploring our new home.

It’s so hard to come here and write, because there’s just so much happening. I’m totally overwhelmed and don’t quite know how to process everything. But, all of that changes tomorrow. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve done.

No turning back now.

On Friday I said goodbye to my job of the last 12 years and walked out of the Wake County Justice Center In Raleigh with a box of what possessions I still had there. There were a lot of tears and a pretty big sense of “OMG what am I doing”, but I still felt very at peace and confident in our plans.

Every time we reach another milestone, another stage of this journey I think, “wow, now it really feels real.” And though i’ve said it numerous times, this one is definitely a biggie.

WE ARE UNDER CONTRACT ON OUR HOUSE!!!!

Chris and I aren’t having kids.

I don’t think that comes as a great surprise to anyone, and people who know us well have known that for quite some time. But it has taken me years to type that sentence without completely falling apart.