A small dispatch for a big piece of news

It is not even a clickbait

To be honest, I had so many epiphanies lately, so I find it difficult to even start. I was working on a dispatch on how sobriety influenced me over the last half a year. But before finishing it and sending it to you, we received really big and very much awaited news.

I will write it right here with no preface.

We got our residency approved.
In Spain.
For 3 years.

For us it means that we can release a part of the stress that was always inside over the last 2 years.

What does it mean for me (and my family)?

It means that we can settle in Spain. I can do my art and client work, because finally Lucas has school from 9 to 5. Lucas has a perspective of proper education. Ariel can reconnect with his Latino identity, as his father is Cuban, so his second native language is actually Spanish. We can go to the family cabin at the lake in Finland, where we haven’t been since pandemic and war, because we can travel in the EU now.

Besides that we can just live, learn, build our community, connect with people.

But why are we in Spain?

Why couldn’t we just stay in Turunç? Well, as of later news, residency in Turkey is now possible only if you purchase a property that costs at least 200k dollars. Before it was 75k. And there was also a possibility to get a residency based on a long term rent contract. Which we did and got residency for 1 year. But in December 2022 rules were changed and never got back to previous state. It means we couldn’t prolong our stay. So we had to come up with the plan. And when Spain finally rolled our Digital Nomad visa in April, we started to prepare. This dispatch is far from being a tutorial on how to get this visa, but I would give 2 tips that worked greatly for us and which are helpful with any big and daunting task:

• people need people (we decided to move together with our friends, who are a couple, so we shared a lot of responsibilities, brainstormed together, poured our anxieties, tried to comfort each other when stuff got too overwhelming. So if you are about to do something epic, do it with other people)

• guides (often free) and helpers (often paid) are real deal (there is little sense in making a new road if there already is one or two. It saves a lot of energy and nerves to use materials prepared by others. Also traps might be very visibly marked. Of course, it is a certain privilege to use paid services, and not all of them are trustworthy. But with some research, interesting options might be found)

These may sound as obvious tips, but let’s allow them to be here. Maybe they are of help to you if you feel a bit lost at the current moment.

Now what?

Now we have a ton of stuff to do to settle. Lots of quests are about to be activated. It is like in a computer game, when new location is slowly opening up. We need to find a place to live which will give us long term rent contract, and this one is a beast of a quest here to be honest. I will report on that later.

We are meeting people and hoping to build connections and find friends.

I am learning Spanish.

I already bought myself a celebratory book (in Spanish) in a bookstore in Tarragona (that is important).

What will you see from me?

More stuff on regular basis.

I am so full of ideas and energy and I finally have uninterrupted time to do STUFF. I edit older footage, I plan to film new, I create new lettering pieces, which I finally aim to turn into downloadables for the online shop, I do lettering for clients, I do portrait photography again, and just photography. I have a huge list of stuff that I want to share in written or drawn or video format.

I aim for a weekly schedule for dispatches here and YouTube videos. So subscribe please if you didn’t do it already. Both of them will be of a shorter form, because I tend to get lost in the details in longer pieces, push deadlines further into the future and never finish. Now I want to concentrate on consistency and being on time.

Soon I will also activate buymeacoffee option with tips, membership and commission options, and also option for the online shop where I will upload downloadables.

My Chronicles here will stay free, no memberships planned, this will (and is) my diary or a lab where I share with you my process.

It is time to wrap up this one, I establish Wednesdays (my dudes!) as a dispatch day, hopefully I will be able to keep up,

thank you for reading and subscribing, it means a lot for me,

V.

PS: dispatch turned out not so small in the end, oopsie