Growing pains

A contented sigh at the finale of an exhausting week.  In this moment right now, I have peace, but these moments are hard won.

In the past seven days, I've done more things that terrify me than I did in the entirety of the past three years.  One week ago, I went to my first French class - a class that had already been in session for the past three weeks.  It was an uncomfortable reminder of the first days as a college freshman almost exactly seven years ago.  The feeling of not knowing a soul but being far too shy to speak up.  The fear that no one will like you, that you're the only one who won't fit into the group.  The passing terror that you've just made a huge mistake, but there's no going back...

Luckily, I'm not that same frightened freshman 17-year-old.  Moving to France has been an exceptional chance to discover just who exactly I am as a person.  How do I cope with extreme change?  How do I deal with my life being turned upside down?  Seven years ago, I hid in my dorm room, convinced that I would never make a friend or ever be happy again.  Now, I've expertly learned how to pull up my big girl pants every day and do what needs going (except today; it's pouring rain and I'm sick today, so I pulled on my big girl sweats and hoodie).

So how do I deal with all this extreme change?  It's all about a lack of choice, really.  The first few weeks that we were in France, I had Ben with me to do all the talking.  Now, Ben has to work all day, so I need to rely on myself to get most of what I need.  That means of lot of sucking up the pride and just going for it.  On Tuesday, I had an interview at a school in a suburb of Lyon.  I didn't have a choice to but to figure out how to get myself out there and show up smiling and on time.  I've had class all week, and I realize that if I want to stay in France, I have no choice but to attend every class so that I can learn this language.  Even when it feels so silly to be going to what feel like high school classes at the age of 25, now it's not about getting a good grade on my report card so a good college will accept me.  It's sad that hard work should ever be about achieving a good grade - no one hands out grades in life.  You either qualify or you don't, and no one really cares what your college GPA was.  If I want to succeed here, I have no choice but to go and DO.  Aller et faire!

Aller-ing and faire-ing next to Le Rhône

But why even bother?  The obvious question might be: who in their right mind quits a good job and moves to a foreign country where they don't know the language?  Why would I even put myself through this discomfort?

GROWTH

By the end of my tenure in Washington, I felt completely stagnant.  There was nothing substantive challenging me, and I lived a comfortable life with a generally unchanging schedule.  While I liked certain things about my job (mainly my manager/therapist and the friends I had at work), I had absolutely no passion for it.  A steady paycheck doesn't necessarily equal a happy life.  No joie de vivre if you will.  It got to the point where I felt like I was lying to myself and doing a disservice to my employer by pretending I cared.  I don't mean that to sound condescending; I really admired my coworkers who had a passion for what they did.  My company had a lot of positives, and I feel really lucky to have worked there for three years... but three years was enough for me.  When I realized that I had no ambition to go further, it didn't make sense to stay.  But my entire life has been centered around stability, and the prospect of deliberately cutting off my stability gave me a few sleepless nights.  Still, I couldn't ignore the fact that constant, unchanging stability will never provide the conditions necessary for growth.  

That's why at 17 I knew I needed to attend a college totally unlike anything I'd ever experienced.  I came from a tiny town in Upstate New York and planted myself in the middle of Boston.  More than once I regretted not attending one of the colleges around my hometown, but even then I knew that my small seed of wanderlust would have yearned for a different ray of sun.  Eventually I did come out of hiding in college to face the deep growing pains of maturity and independence.  Living in DC solidified my calm inner mountain of independent living and gave me the foundation of self that I need now in this new adventure.  Through growth comes confidence.  Stagnation only leads to doubt and ambivalence, and that's no kind of life for me.  

For now, I feel at peace, and that's just where I like to be.

Apropos to nothing: we have appliances!!!!!

Just where I like to be.  Doing the cuisiner thing.