I was just thinking that I’ve been a freelancer ten years today, and then it slowly dawned on me that no, I’ve been a freelancer *eleven* years today; I apparently missed last year’s anniversary totally.
*Today*, we’re ten years in Ireland. I am, in fact, ten years and 24 days in Ireland today, but Ted, who came a month after me, arrived on the 1st. Or possibly the 5th, but anyway, we count from his arrival at the start of December.
Ten years. Wow.
People still ask if we think we’ll ever move back. We honestly just sit there and stare blankly at the idea, for a lot of reasons. It’s expensive to move, of course, and there’s still not real nationalized health care in the States, and it’d be starting all the fuck over again, which is just too much to contemplate, and we really can’t imagine where we’d want to live if we did (most of the short-list options are too expensive), and we’ve been gone long enough that visiting the States is like visiting a foreign country. A very familiar foreign country, granted, but a foreign country. Also, the States are full of crazy people. If we were to move back to North America, we think we’d really rather move to Canada. I don’t know that they have a deep need for fantasy novelists in Canada, though. :)
Anyway! Ten years in Ireland. That’s a long time! Nigh unto a quarter of my life! Tempis fugit!