Why We’re Leaving the U.S. for Italy: A Family’s Story of Burnout, Planning, and Purpose
- Caesar Sedek
- Apr 18
- 8 min read
Our family’s honest story of why we’re leaving the U.S. for Italy — and what it took to get everyone on board.
We didn’t land on the decision all at once. But we got there—together.
There wasn’t a single moment when I said, “I want to move to Italy.” No dramatic scene. No slamming of doors or lighting of passports on fire. That’s not how it happened.
It started slower—quietly. Like most honest decisions, it grew in the empty spaces between all the loud ones.
I’ve always been the one who embraced change. Goes with my consulting lifestyle. Kamila, my wife, is more rooted. She came to the U.S. from Poland in 2003, right after we got married. Fiancé visa, brand-new life, not a word of English. She dove in. Learned the language, built a business, created something from nothing. By the time we had our first daughter in 2008, we owned two furniture stores and were running a successful interior design business. Then the housing crash flattened everything.
Kamila gave up the business and stayed home with our daughter. I doubled down on my career. We clawed our way back—moved from our starter home into a bigger one, in a privileged suburb. Pool in the backyard. Two luxury cars in the driveway. Our kids went to private school. We traveled internationally every year. On the surface, we’d built the American dream.
And then COVID hit.
Everything changed. At first, it was just disorienting: the sudden stop, the shift to Zoom, kids struggling with online school while I ground through endless virtual meetings. But even when the world “opened back up,” something in me didn’t. I work in consulting, and anyone in this field knows—it’s not a remote job. Deals are made in the hallway, not the inbox. Opportunities live in nuance, not Slack messages. And suddenly, all of that nuance was gone.
Then came the layoff. One year into a lucrative role with a new firm, the kind of position you think will insulate you from the chaos—and poof, gone. Acquisition. Cost-cutting. I was a line item on a balance sheet.
I got severance—just enough so I wouldn’t sue. Applied for unemployment. $450 a week. That’s what California thinks your time is worth after decades of six-figure taxes. We had 30 days of health insurance. COBRA was laughable. Obamacare, at our income level, was just as bad. All of a sudden, my family’s well-being—our physical health, not just our finances—was hanging by the thread of a job that clearly didn’t give a damn about us.
And that’s when Kamila changed.
She had always loved California—the weather, the values, the rhythm of it. Even after the crash, even after the long rebuild, she was still holding onto the dream. But something broke open in her during those months. Maybe it was watching me burn out. Maybe it was seeing our girls become teenagers in a country that treats young women as liabilities.
Maybe it was the realization that even after doing everything “right,” our daughters might still end up perpetually renting, permanently hustling, and completely dependent on partners for stability.
And then there was the thing we didn’t talk about for a long time — the thing that’s always humming in the background if you’re raising kids in America now.
School shootings.
Savanna’s high school had one, five years ago. She wasn’t there yet — but the story is still part of the building. The trauma still clings to the walls. There are memorials outside, sometimes with fresh candles. The fences are tall, severe, permanent. More prison than school.
She goes through active shooter drills twice a year, like it’s as normal as gym class.
We don’t want that for her. Or for Scarlett. Or for our grandkids, someday.
And at some point, you stop pretending that’s just “part of modern life” and start asking: Why are we normalizing this?
Why are we spending our best years trying to make sense of a system that’s actively failing our kids?
We talked more. Not formally—just in the car, over dinner, between errands. And slowly, the topic stopped being taboo. We didn’t call it an escape. It was a reset. A reimagining. A pivot.
We started exploring. Costa Rica? Panama? We love them both, but they felt too far from Europe, from Poland, from the rest of the world we still wanted to show our kids. Portugal? Maybe. Spain? Closer. Greece? Beautiful, but remote. Italy?
Italy had history. Familiarity. I spent my childhood summers swimming in the rocky coves of Liguria, my sister got engaged in Venice, I knew where the good gelato shops were in Palermo. My mom’s secret sauce recipe came from a nonna she met in Gela, Sicily. I’d lived in Rome once. And we started watching House Hunters International episodes like they were documentaries. Bit by bit, it became real. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon enough.
The kids weren’t blindsided. They’d heard us talking about it for a while. But they weren’t passive either.
Savanna—our oldest—was all in. She’s the adventurous one. First in line for the rollercoaster. Sharp, observant, and way too emotionally intelligent to miss how frayed we’d both become. She’s 16 now, already a world traveler with us, already taken independent trips with her school to Japan, already plotting how to study in Europe. She’s also extremely frugal, so the idea of cheaper college and grad school resonated hard. When we floated the idea of taking Italian instead of Spanish in high school, she said yes. Signed up at the local community college. One year of effort, two years of credits. No complaints.
Scarlett, our youngest, took longer to warm up. She rolled her eyes when we started cooking more Italian food at home or practicing vocabulary in the kitchen. She’s the rebel. The one who doesn’t want to do what everyone else is doing—especially not her parents. She wanted to learn French. Fine, we said. We’re not forcing Italy on you. Think of it as a home base. When you’re 18, you’ll have 27 countries to choose from. France, Germany, the Netherlands—it’s all on the table. Just learn Italian too. She nodded. That was her version of “I’m in.”
We didn’t set a date right away. We worked backwards from the milestones that mattered: Scarlett will finish high school in 2030. Savanna will graduate college the same year. They’ll both be at natural turning points—old enough to choose for themselves, free enough to make bold moves.
So we applied for Polish passports. Dual citizenship opens doors across the EU. Kamila and I started learning more. I obsessed—reading forums, studying tax codes, mapping out housing options. Kamila focused on the girls, on how to make the idea feel less like uprooting and more like expanding.
And slowly, the tone in our home shifted. No more “if.” Just “when.”
And then there’s this:
In 1988, when my parents made the difficult decision to stay in the U.S., they were running. Escaping. Communism, economic instability, and a country that felt more like a prison than a home.
They made their decision in two days. That’s all it took.
Back to Poland, where even as a ship captain my dad was stripped of dignity the second he stepped off the vessel — or stay in America, where they’d start from scratch but maybe, just maybe, I’d have a future.
He was 47. Stripped of his title. Starting over from zero. My mom went to work. They spoke little English. Had no network. No plan. But they did it — for me. For my sister. For the promise of something better.
And it was brutal. Spontaneous. Jarring. The trauma of that kind of leap doesn’t just land on the parents — it echoes through the kids, too.
So no — I won’t repeat that.
This move? This isn’t a two-day decision. This is years of planning, spreadsheets, citizenship paperwork, tax modeling, college timelines. This is me building a soft landing for my daughters—not just a physical place, but a psychological one.
I don’t want them ripped from one world into another. I want them to walk into the new one eyes open. I want them to want it. And if one day they decide that the U.S. still feels like home — they can go back. But it’ll be on their terms, not mine.
We’re not running from something. We’re building something.
And this time, we’re doing it with a damn good plan.
We’re still here in L.A. Still living in the system we’re planning to leave. But it feels different now. I’m no longer pushing uphill. I’m preparing. Saving. Building. I’m not chasing status or legacy. I’m designing a softer landing. A better second act.
I know how this must look from the outside. The Italy obsession. The Substack. The Blog. The Instagram posts. The brand. The business. It probably looks like the Sedeks have lost their collective minds. I can hear the silent snickering — they’ve gone off the deep end. They’re not coming back. They think they’re starting over in their 50s?
And maybe we are. Maybe we’re a little irrational. But I’ve never been clearer.
Most of our friends are rooted here—parents, kids, grandkids, school districts, pensions, routines they can’t imagine breaking. For many, the idea of leaving feels like giving up. Like abandoning the script. I get it. For them, staying feels safer. Familiar. Normal. But I don’t see it that way.
If I could stomach the wet, gray winters and the existential crankiness, I’d move back to Poland tomorrow. That’s not the issue. This isn’t about running from America or returning to anything. It’s about choosing something better—for us, for our girls. Wanting a different quality of life isn’t a failure. Pretending the one you’re living is still working when it’s clearly not? That’s the real delusion.
And yes — I know how weird this public-facing version of me must look.
Because here’s the truth: I’m a private person. A deeply private person.
I’m a security and privacy professional by trade. Sharing our lives online, opening up about our future, our finances, our fears—this goes against everything in my nature.
But that’s also the point.Putting it out there makes it real. Visible. Tangible.It’s our way of not backing out. Of keeping ourselves accountable. (Now if I could only do it with my diet and workout routine).We can change our minds—but we won’t.Because this isn’t just an idea. It’s a direction.
There have only been three things in my life I’ve ever been absolutely sure of.
I knew I wanted to marry that Polish girl who came to California one summer 23 years ago.I knew I wanted a daughter.And then I knew I wanted another one.
Everything else? That was just life—chaotic, unpredictable, meaningful in its own messy way.
But this? This next chapter?
It’s not a dream. It’s a plan.
And I’m willing to die on that hill.
Planning your own exit? Thinking about what life might look like outside the U.S.?
That’s exactly what I write about here—openly, honestly, and without the Instagram-filter bullshit.
You can follow the journey here for checklists, region deep-dives, and tools to help you plan your next chapter—wherever that may lead.
And if you’re the kind of person who needs a blueprint, not just a pep talk—check out the book:
It’s part guide, part reality check, and all the things I wish someone had handed me when we started this process.
Comments