A New Chapter: Finally Looking Forward

Monday, 24 August 2026

There are moments when life does not change dramatically from one day to the next, but something inside you changes because a period of uncertainty has finally come to an end.

Today feels like one of those moments.

After months of paperwork, questions, documents, appointments, waiting, and uncertainty, my residency in Moldova has finally been approved.

It is difficult to explain how important that feels.

Not because a residence permit magically changes everyday life. Tomorrow there will still be bills to pay, things to organise, projects to work on, problems to solve, and an endless list of things that need my attention.

But one fundamental question has finally disappeared:

Can I actually build my life here?

The answer is now yes.

From Moving to Actually Living

When we decided to move to Moldova, I knew that it would involve a period of transition. Moving from one country to another is never simply a matter of putting your belongings into a car, driving across Europe, and declaring that you have arrived.

There are administrative realities. Legal realities. Financial questions. Family matters. Documents. Registrations. Banks. Government offices. And, inevitably, a considerable amount of waiting.

During all of that, it is surprisingly difficult to feel completely settled.

You may physically be somewhere, but part of your mind remains occupied with the possibility that something might not work.

Now that my Moldovan residency has been approved, that feeling has changed.

For the first time since this journey began, I feel that I can stop concentrating so much on getting here and start concentrating on being here.

And, more importantly, on what comes next.

Time to Write Again

There is another consequence of this.

For years, I have wanted to write more.

I have accumulated ideas for articles about technology, cybersecurity, software, business, management, countries where I have lived, experiences from my career, things that went badly, things that went surprisingly well, and simply observations about life.

Many of those articles were never written.

Sometimes I was too busy.

Sometimes something else was more urgent.

And sometimes, particularly during more difficult periods, I simply did not have the state of mind required to sit down and turn thoughts into words.

So there is now a considerable backlog.

I have decided to change that.

Over the coming weeks and months, I intend to publish many of those things that have been sitting in my head—or in half-finished notes—for far too long.

Some posts may describe events that happened months or even years ago. When that is the case, I will try to provide the appropriate context. Others will deal with ideas that I have been developing for a long time but never properly documented.

And there will also be something new.

Recording the Moldova Chapter

I want this blog to become, among other things, a record of this new chapter of my life.

Not a carefully polished retrospective written five years from now, when I already know which decisions succeeded and which failed.

I want to record some of it while it is happening.

That is particularly relevant because another journey is beginning at almost exactly the same time.

I have been considering starting a technology company in Moldova.

Today I had what I consider the first genuinely positive outcome in that journey.

It is still very early.

There is no reason for grand announcements, and certainly no reason to pretend that an idea has already become a company, a product or a success. Anyone who has worked around technology businesses knows how enormous the distance can be between an interesting idea and a sustainable business.

But something important happened today: the idea moved, however slightly, from something existing mostly in my head towards something that can be seriously discussed in the real world.

For me, that matters.

And I want to document what happens next.

Building Something in Moldova

One of the things I am increasingly interested in understanding is what it actually means to build a technology company here.

Not theoretically.

Practically.

What support exists? Who are the people building the ecosystem? Where is the talent? What programmes are useful? What are the difficulties? How does Moldova's technology sector connect with Europe and the wider international market? Where are the opportunities that perhaps outsiders do not immediately see?

And, perhaps most importantly:

Can the experience accumulated during decades working with technology in different countries be turned into something useful here?

I do not yet know the answer.

That is precisely why the journey is interesting.

I expect there will be good meetings and disappointing ones. Ideas will change. Some assumptions will undoubtedly prove wrong. There will probably be bureaucracy, technical challenges, financial questions and moments when I wonder why I decided to do this at all.

There will hopefully also be discoveries, interesting people, unexpected opportunities and eventually something tangible that did not exist before.

Rather than writing the story afterwards and making everything look inevitable, I would rather preserve some of the uncertainty.

Because that is what building something actually looks like.

A Different Kind of Monday

So this Monday represents several things at once.

My residency is approved.

The uncertainty surrounding whether I can establish my life in Moldova has largely disappeared.

I can finally relax a little.

I can start publishing the articles I have wanted to write for years.

And, at almost exactly the same moment, the first steps towards creating my first startup are beginning to feel real.

There is something satisfying about that combination.

For quite some time, much of my attention has been directed backwards: solving problems, closing chapters, dealing with paperwork, recovering from disappointments, and trying to put various pieces of life into the correct places.

Today my attention feels pointed in the opposite direction.

Forward.

I do not know exactly where this new chapter will lead.

But for the first time in quite a while, that uncertainty feels exciting rather than uncomfortable.

So perhaps this is the right moment to start writing again.

There are many stories from the past that I still want to tell.

But from today onwards, there will also be a new story unfolding in real time:

building a new life, and perhaps a new company, in Moldova.