The Transition Artist

I’m creeping up on the 6-month mark of my move to London. The time has flown by so quickly, it feels like I’ve hardly had time to blink or sit down or even breathe – until this past month, that is.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the Eurostar, watching the French countryside roll by as the sun sets over little towns and farmland and the gut twisting knot of tristesse and nostalgia slowly loosens its grip on my stomach. The sun set has always had a special way of calming me; I think it might be the way the colors give me something to look at and soothe my soul as my mind drifts, leaving no room for overthinking or intense nostalgia, just enough space for memories to pass through.

There are a lot of them to pick through today, and my mind can’t decide which one it wants to spend the most time on.

An image of myself on this train less than a year ago, on a reconnaissance trip to London when the weather was colder, comes to my mind. I was anxious and eager, wondering if I could ever really move to a city that seemed so big and fast. What I knew of London, which a friend had described as “the best city in the world,” came from a quick, touristy weekend visit from years ago and a long conversation with said friend over beers, during which she convinced me that London was the magical land where diversity thrives, and that it would be just the change I needed after spending almost four years in a city where everybody looks (dresses) about the same.

When I arrived in London, it was snowing, covered in Christmas lights, and was the perfect, twinkling picture of change on the horizon. I formed a big fat crush on the healthy food chains, the coffee shops, the cute, decorative boutiques, and the friendliness of the people that reminded me of my American roots. And just like that, I was sold. My boyfriend was encouraging. My leaving the home we had built together wouldn’t be deal-breaker, he promised, and he didn’t want me to have any regrets later in life. There was no reason not to go.

So I opened myself to pondering and just reflecting on the whole idea. Then, to searching – until the day the job of my dreams jumped out of a LinkedIn ad and onto my plate. And in the same company I already worked in! I arranged to talk with the hiring manager, and strained to keep my voice at an even tone, trying not to sound overly excited as she described the job of my dreams. (Note: she used the words “new role, lots to be done, you’ll be creating this job for yourself with some help from our business development team” and “it will involve research, strategy, and content creation.”) The job of my dreams was one I got the freedom to build myself. As a Prospecting Strategy Associate Director, the only shoes I had to fill would be a tailor-made pair that I would create with my own two hands and the brain in between. The only catch was that, in order to start strong, I’d need to join my counterpart in London as soon as possible.

So I did.

I see myself on this Eurostar in April, hiding my red-rimmed, puffy eyes behind a pair of sunglasses five days before my start-date. A sweet older French lady sat next to me and wanted to chat as soon as I sat down and she immediately peppered me with questions and chatter.

“Have you ever been to London? Oh London is so lovely. I’m going to London with a group from my city. We live in Rouen. Do you know where that is, Rouen? It’s not far from Paris. It took us about five hours because we had to take a bus. I haven’t been to London in 20 years, you see, and I’ve been dying to go back. We’re going to practice English. Do you speak English? Here, look, you’ll see, our whole trip itinerary is in English. Have you been to these places?”

Wanting to have my moment and wallow in my post-departure sorrow, I begrudgingly gave her one-word answers. “Yes. Yes. No. Ah, interesting…. Yes. No…” until I couldn’t politely refuse the conversation anymore. My inner socialite replaced my sulky, leave-me-be-I-just-left-my-boyfriend-can’t-you-see-I’m-mourning self behind. I told her that I was moving to London for work, that I’m American, so, yes I speak English, but had lived in France for the past few years and had worked there and built a life there.

“Ah, c’est génial !” She said. “It must be easier leaving France when one is not married and doesn’t have kids. You are very lucky.”

I nodded, agreeing on the married with kids part, though feeling like leaving my dear friends and partner behind was almost as painful as leaving behind a family.

“Do you have any friends in London? Know anybody there? You must if you speak English and have been before!”

I shook my head. “Non, personne pour le moment…” And this was true. No one would be waiting for me when I got off the train. No one would tell me they were happy I’d finally made it, at least not until my first day at work the following week. No friends would be grabbing drinks with me to celebrate my first day. But that was okay, none of this was new. I had done this before. I didn’t have friends when I moved to France, and even had to start over multiple times when friends moved away. I knew what loneliness felt like, and I had learned how to be alone without wallowing in my solitude. I could do this.

I got to my new apartment and jumped into action, because it’s the only thing you really can do when alone in a new place. Get busy. I went to the bank to open an account, answered emails and sorted out meetings for my first week, bought myself groceries and a baby bottle of prosecco (somebody had to celebrate my arrival, even if that somebody was just me), unpacked, and sat – just sat in silence in my temporary (fancy) apartment, and let my new surroundings sink in for a bit. There I was, in a new city, in a new country, in a new apartment, in my new temporary home. Cheers, damn it.

It feels like as soon as the words “I don’t know anyone” had slipped out of my mouth, I had to take them back because, as it turns out, the English are just as friendly as they seemed when I visited. My first week of work, my coworkers invited me to dinner and to the pub (multiple times, like even on Friday at 1pm before we had eaten lunch, because apparently that’s acceptable in the English workplace), and dropped by often to see how I was settling in (I was floored; who are these extremely kind people?!). In the span of two weeks, I had set up my bank details, secured a long-term flat, gotten a tax ID number, and had friends visiting and a train ticket booked to go back home to see my Paris “family.” I was settling into life in London in a way that felt eerily easy… is it possible to have a transition be too easy?

The settling in was easy, but the leaving behind wasn’t. This past July, I was particularly woeful as I sat on the Eurostar after an action-packed trip back to Paris. I fully accepted the big fat tears that rolled down my face on the early train that morning; not because I didn’t want to return to London, but because I didn’t want to leave France.

The weekend before, I came home to an obscure letter from the government (typical) and struggled (as usual) to understand the French system and make a tax declaration (two months late, but to be fair, it’s because I never got a tax number). My weekend trip home turned into a week, allowing me a little extra time to sort out the tax fiasco (which has only just been resolved this month – thank you, France), and I spent a week in Paris that will go down in history as one of the most epic of my life, alongside all the other French football fans.

The day of the World Cup final, I payed a small fortune to move my train ticket from Sunday night to Monday morning, betting, in my own way, on France winning. My bet was good, as it turns out, and I spent that Sunday night drinking rosé out of the bottle and marching through the streets of Paris and singing with the hordes of people who had gathered there. We yell-sang at the top of our lungs, “La, la, la, la, laaaa, la, la, la, la, la, LA, la, la, la, laaaa” (the instrumental part of “I will survive” – their victory anthem) and chanted, “Champions du monde, champions du monde, on est, on est champions du monde !” with French flags painted on our faces. I watched people climb lamp posts, buildings, bus stops, trees, and a myriad of other high objects, and felt intoxicated by the amount of emotion around me; people kissing, dancing, twirling red and blue smoke bombs in the air, creating human chains with strangers, stripping down to their underwear and jumping off the bridges into the canal for a celebratory swim… I felt an overwhelming sense of unity and pride for this country that I now call home that I still struggle to put into words.

As I walked to the Eurostar at 6am that morning, the sun rising over rose-colored streets covered in remnants of the night’s festivities, all I wanted was to stay. I thought about missing my train. I thought about working from home. I wanted to float in that rose-colored feeling forever.  But I had a 9:30 meeting and people waiting for me in London; so off I went, reassured at the idea that I’d be back soon.

…

I rolled back into Paris in early August with an extra set of hands to carry the humongous suitcase I had brought along. My boyfriend, who was already on vacation, had come to spend a week with me in London and I was all roses and daisies. My boss, understanding that France was home, gave me two weeks off, à la française, and allowed me a week of remote working so I could join my man and his family in the South of France for our annual vacation.

We started our vacation in the countryside in the Picardie region at my best friend’s mother’s wedding. It was beautiful and I felt so happy I thought my heart might explode.
We ate and sat on hay bales talking to close friends and cousins of the family, drank locally brewed beer, played with other people’s babies, danced until the sun threatened its return, and slept in our little tent under the stars at twilight.

Every now and then as the night wore on, I felt like I had stepped outside of my own body; I was wearing that warm blanket of love that comes with meeting the people who are close to the people you’re close with. I realized that that warmth also came from the people I was surrounded by: the blend of Spanish, French and Réunionais culture that invites conversation so naturally, the French language and tradition that has taught me that “once you’re in, you’re in, there is no faking it here,” and, of course, the happy love-drunk you get at a wedding added to the warmth of the moment.

Though I’m known to get nostalgic after steeping in so much emotion, I was excited to go home to Paris and finish packing my bags for the next leg of our vacation: we were headed to the Cavalaire-sur-mer on the Côté d’Azur and then onto a road trip around the Liguria coast in Italy, down to the Cinque Terre. 

I’ll save the details of that trip for another time, but it was like a baptism. Heaven is a place on earth and it’s the Mediterranean coastline; it has everything I could possibly want in a vacation – almost constant sunshine (though it never really gets too hot), incredible views, mountain trails to run on, clear blue water, white and silver beaches, coves full of fish to dive in, calm waters for boat trips to nearby islands, and, best of all, fresh, delicious food (I will never tire of fresh grilled fish, seafood pasta, prosciutto and melon salad, steak tartare à l’italienne, or homemade ice cream/gelato). It’s worth a visit… or a lifetime of adventures.

But all good things come to an end, and we returned to Paris this past weekend just before my birthday so I could celebrate with a few friends. I got spoiled rotten by a couple people who know me far too well. I rang in another year with a day full of surprises, ranging from a decadent jazz brunch to an escape game to hours at an arcade to a big Texas barbecue; proof that my people know the fastest road to my heart.

Now, back on the train back to London, I’m dreaming of Home as I stare into the sunset. Home, though ever so hard to describe, is significant for me – so much so that my iPhone auto-capitalizes it any time I use it in a sentence. I want to go Home (like that, thanks iPhone). Although I may never have a proper definition for it, I ache for it all the time. Home is/are the places my heart lives: Paris and its beautiful rose-colored streets; the beautiful apartment just south of Paris that my boyfriend keeps warm and continually upgrades while I’m away (asking my opinion over messages and the phone so it still feels like mine); the Mediterranean coastline in the summer and all its beauty and magnitude; the places I’ve lived with my loved ones (Houston, Colorado, Nashville, France, Kenya…).

London, where I’ve learned to love myself and my solitude a little more, and where I’ve fallen in love with my work and some new friends, is slowly becoming home (lowercase, for the time being). My feet and my head are there, but I can’t seem to pull my heart out of France. Lucky for me, they’re close, separated only by a two and a half hour train ride, and the sunsets just as beautiful on both sides of the channel. For now, that’s enough to melt the nostalgia.

X

for Betty, with love.