Two Months In: When Slow Living Starts to Feel Like Real Life

There's a moment when you stop counting the days.

For me, it was a Tuesday morning at ELC — Portuguese class, conjugating irregular verbs, completely lost and completely committed. I live here. I'm learning this language because I live here. Not to be polite to locals, not to order a pastry without pointing. Because this is my life now and Portuguese is part of it.

That was the moment the clock stopped.

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The Week That Became My Life

Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm in class. Thursdays a small group of us spill out afterward for coffee or chá — the kind of unhurried, we'll-leave-when-we-leave afternoons that feel impossible to explain to anyone living on a schedule. Mondays I walk an hour along the water to my acupuncturist, and I usually meander home through the neighborhoods after, no particular route, no particular rush. Wednesdays I create — I sew, I design, I make something new to wear. Every other Thursday I'm in Lisbon for open mic night: musicians, poets, spoken word, storytellers, dinner, cocktails, and at some point finding my way home happily. Twice a month I do something cultural — a museum, a play, live music.

Every morning starts with a three-mile walk with Ruby through the neighborhoods. Twice a week she swims at the praia. I write, I draw, I read. I recently started a weekly free-writing session with my neighbor — who is now my dear friend — and it has been one of the unexpected gifts of this whole leap.

I am averaging 50+ miles a week on foot, in real clothes, going real places

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What Two Months Actually Feels Like

It feels like exhaling.

At one month I was still performing the move — settling in, making sure I was doing enough, seeing enough, justifying the decision with activity. Two months in, I tell myself almost every day: I live here. Which means I have time. Which means today can be reading at the beach or staying home with an audiobook while I sew and both of those are equally valid and equally mine.

The most important thing I've given myself is permission to ease in. To wake up and find what feels right today. No agenda. No checklist. Just the question: what do I want?

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The Moment I Became a 'Resident'It wasn't the apartment. It wasn't the routines. It wasn't even the visa.

It was the transit card.

I had to get proof of address — the full residency card hasn't arrived yet, but you work with what you have — and with that proof I was able to get my local transit card. With my photo on it. One monthly fee, all the transit, the same as everyone else who lives here. I held that card and felt something shift.

And then there are the smaller versions of that feeling, repeated: the shopkeepers who recognize me now. The vet. The fabric store, which is honestly my second home — they tease me that they'll see me tomorrow, because they will. The neighbors who say hello in recognition, not because I'm a curiosity but because I belong to this street now.

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On Botox, and Living the Story

I wrote about the no-needle decision in my last post. Two months later I can tell you where it came from.

I'm outside constantly, which means sun, which means botox gets more expensive and more complicated. But the real answer is simpler than logistics. Portugal changed what I want to spend on. I want memories. Experiences. Things that give me actual joy. Shared dinners with friends. Mornings I didn't plan. Strangers who will become people I love.

Preventing my wrinkles from multiplying is not on that list anymore. I'd rather keep living the story of my face than try to pause it.

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The Sun & Sole Edit

Fifty plus miles a week, and only about fifteen of them are what I'd call exercise. The rest are just life — the store, a hike, dinner, a friend's place, a long afternoon with nowhere specific to be. Cobblestones, slick boardwalks, tiled stairs, and whatever the day decides to throw at me.

Cool, comfortable, genuinely good-looking shoes stopped being optional around week three. Same with clothes that move with me from morning to midnight. If you're building a wardrobe for a life that's mostly lived outdoors and on foot, I've been curating The Sun & Sole Edit for exactly this.

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Every road leads to another road. Every choice opens a different door. I don't need to know where any of it ends up — I'm choosing for right now, for this specific morning, this specific turn. Tomorrow is just another road I haven't walked yet

That's not uncertainty anymore. That's the whole point.

Shop The Sun & Sole Edit

Everything I actually wear for a life lived mostly on foot — good shoes, easy layers, things that take you from morning to midnight without a second thought. The Sun & Sole Edit →