Escape to Savannah

What brought me there with before and after renovation photos

The end of 2018 was a perfect storm of catastrophic life events for me. There was the recent divorce, my beloved dog Coco (middle name Chanel) was dying a slow death from congestive heart failure and I found myself an empty nester with both girls off to college. Oh and I almost forgot, I lost my main source of income a year earlier when I lost my biggest design consultant client and had not successfully filled that void.  

Coco died two weeks before Christmas and as you might imagine I was pretty damn depressed. For the first time in my life I went on antidepressants which didn’t help, they just made me feel blah. I decided to cash in my New York chips and put the family apartment on the market. There was really no plan apart from changing my life completely. I’ve only ever lived within 50 miles of New York City and had spent most of my life in the city. 

My daughters opposed my decision. The apartment had been their home from ages four and seven. New York was the center of their universe and they couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. So then came irrational decision number two; bribe them with an extended trip to Europe that summer.  Mind you I still had no idea where I was going to live after the trip.

The apartment was sold and we closed in June of 2019. I spent the previous months packing up 14 years of life. At times this was a heart wrenching process but I powered through and actually felt better taking action, even if that action was jumping into the void. I also figuratively began dating Rick Steves of travel show fame as I plotted our European escape from reality.

The day of the closing I got a mani, pedi and botox then headed downtown for a farewell dinner with our nearest and dearest. I was riding high on action and it felt good.  For the next couple weeks the girls and I did a farewell tour. We started at the beach in New Jersey where my family once had a house and where the girls escaped New York City summers to as children. Then the Hamptons, and a swing upstate.

We spent July and August in Europe and had a fantastic time. While in Copenhagen, a friend from New York who had moved there asked me rather poignantly, “What are you running from?”. Remarkably, I hadn’t looked at it that way, but could see the truth in his question to which I could only reply, “Everything”.

Savannah