Kaitlin P. McCreery, Ph.D.

In my adult life, I’ve barely managed an annual post on social media. Some people admire this quality because this also means I am also not captive to hours of doom-scrolling, or sadness from daily reading about tragic disasters across the globe, or compulsive online shopping. But I have also avoided posting on social media because I feel on some level it is a trap of reputation, where one goes to receive external validation for their closest relationships, attractiveness, glow-ups, and beautiful places visited rather than just appreciating these experiences for their present effect and sharing intentionally. A side effect of this avoidance, however, is a resulting lack of documentation of the beautiful decisions I have made to build my own life. I find myself suddenly deposited into adulthood, where I have to make decisions every day that are shaping the way I move through the world. And so, I think the early-2000s Blog Life might be a good platform for me, to facilitate reflection on these transformative times with the gratitude I carry with me every day and the awe of my mere existence. A blog would hopefully also allow me to get to know myself a little better, and let me share stories with friends and family overseas. Also, I watched “Julie and Julia” again.

I finished my PhD in July of last year, resulting in my current mental state of a post-graduate school phase where I throw “Dr.” on all of my plane tickets and Amazon packages. I had an amazing PhD in Colorado with supportive labs and mentors, with a fantastic group of friends, and I even fell in love and got engaged. But, in order to keep growing into everything I want to be, I felt the calling to “level up.” I had an opportunity to work for a scientist and Director, a pioneer in an emerging scientific discipline at a world-renowned research institute in a country I had never visited. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn away from. Therefore, now I am now here, in Germany, living in Münster and working as a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine. If I had told my 13-year-old self that this is what my life would look like, she would be so proud. So I sold all of my things, and I moved here for her.

My partner and I had a very cush life in Boulder, Colorado. We had a small backyard, we hosted board game nights, we went to every good restaurant in town, we had our regular grocery store, and we had our Saturday routine of running errands. We enjoyed the perks of life in Colorado by snowboarding in the winter weekends and camping in the summer weekends. As we approached age 30 we are faced with the pivotal point that every Millennial faces when they achieve “adulthood”: Is it time to buy a house? Settle down, and have a family? Why is there no corporate ladder to climb anymore? What do we want to get out of our lives, and our careers? Maybe we were crazy, but we didn’t see ourselves fitting into an American social paradigm. At least, not yet.

So now, Audrey is living in Switzerland working her dream job, and I am living in Germany working in mine. We are still a family, but now we get to meet places across the continent and experience a new culture with every train ride. I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find Home, a place where we truly belong and maybe the only place we ever do.