If you’ve been following my blog for the last few months, then you know that I’m planning on leaving NYC forever and moving to Colorado.

OK, joking about the forever part. I can’t leave my beloved, noisy city for too long.

BUT, I have an update.

And I’ll get to that in a sec. First, I just want to say that in life there will ALWAYS be curve balls.

You have to be able to roll with the punches, right?

The number one reason I started freelancing is to have that freedom. To have the ability to handle curveballs and be in control of what happens next, no matter what.

Even before I started freelancing, I’ve always had the outlook that the not-so-great news brings new opportunities with it.

Earlier this month, when my boyfriend, Curt, came home from a month-long Army training session, I received a substantial punch to roll with.

When we met, Curt had recently come home from his first deployment.

He told me within the first week we started dating that he wanted to deploy again someday.

Curt is an Army reservist,  and for those of who don’t know what that is (um, I didn’t up until I met Curt) basically, he’s a part-time service member. Being a reservist allows you to have a normal life and job, but you have to go to drills once a month and deploy when missions come up.

I just didn’t think “someday” would happen so soon.

When Curt got home from the training for his new Army job, I casually asked, “so what does this mean for deployment, are you ready now if something comes up?”

He said, “Well, actually…” And then explained how an opportunity presented itself while he was training, and he took it.

We were literally checking out at ShopRite on a random afternoon when this conversation happened.

I was stunned.

I was happy.

I’m still a little scared — mostly because of the challenges and decisions that lie ahead for our relationship.

What this means for us is a year of long distance with little contact and no visitation.

That’s no picnic, even for the people who have done long distance for the majority of their relationship. We haven’t yet decided how we’re going to handle it (it’s too early for that discussion) but, so far, we’re just focusing on the positives.

Curt’s deployment is the lemon I was referring to in the title of this post.

My original plan was to move to Colorado for around six months (one ski season) and then come back to the east coast.

Now that I know Curt will likely be gone for nine to 12 months later this year, I’ve decided to turn my stay in Colorado into a snowboarding world tour.

My world tour? That’s the lemonade.

What the heck is a snowboarding world tour?

Well, it’s been my big dream for a long time to snowboard in other countries, because I’ve only ever experienced US snow aside from one short snowboarding trip to Canada.

Here are the countries I know I want to snowboard in the 2017-2018 season while Curt is gone:

I’ll start off in Colorado for a few months, as planned. Then…

• Canada (again)
• Japan
• New Zealand
• Australia
• France
• Italy
• Switzerland
• Austria
• Finland
• Argentina

I feel like I’m forgetting some, but those are the most important ones.

Why now?

Curt is a big reason why I’m still in New York City. Since I can work remotely, I don’t need to work or stay here.

But I have an undeniable itch to skip town for a substantial amount of time because I’ve never lived more than four hours away from here.

On one hand, Curt’s deployment puts us in a hard situation.

On the other, it’s an opportunity.

I’m not going to sit here in New York City and miss him for a year.

I’m taking this opportunity to miss him from all over the world while working remotely and doing what I love: snowboarding. 

I’m so pumped about this that I even started a YouTube channel where I’ll probably document my entire journey.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Tips on how to plan this type of trip? reach out: taliasarakoren[at]gmail[dot]com.