I made the tough but good decision this fall and moved back to the old USA. After spending the summer in Minnesota, I returned to France in September with the solitary goal of finding a good job. And then as time passed, my goal devolved into finding any job. And when that didn't work out either, I jumped ship and came back.To be honest, what led up to this decision, the decision itself, and its inevitable aftermath have created what is undoubtedly the most challenging situation I've ever dealt with. I invested a LOT into my two years in France: I moved over there alone without knowing anyone; I negotiated my way through setting up housing, insurances, internet, everything; I met and made some of the best friends I'll ever have; I encountered a ton of problems with housing, insurances, internet, everything; and I survived. All the ups and downs of life still exist when living abroad, but it's all magnified due to the newness of everyday occurrences and your unfamiliarity of the country. I started to realize that I need a wider net of people to catch me when bad stuff happened, to hold me up when things just got tougher. My mom continually told me, "It doesn't have to be so hard!" And it just got too hard when job-searching bore absolutely no fruit and the stress got too heavy, I knew the time had come to go home.
So I'm moving on! The first few weeks were the hardest, but luckily I came home right before Thanksgiving so the family/friends/food distractions were myriad all the way through Christmas. I'm dealing with it all pretty well, although I still cry at every movie I watch (I even cried during"Tangled" at the movie theater. How embarrassing) and even during some TV commercials. Job hunting has been unsuccessful thus far, although I've had a few interviews to keep my hopes up.
The most difficult part of these giant changes -- and the reason why I cry during Disney movies and TV ads -- has been leaving behind two important people in France: my friend, Whitney, and my boyfriend, Jeff. Whitney and I became like sisters in our lives in Pertuis (and most Pertuisians thought that till the end!): we arrived at the same time, went through hellfire and heaven together through all of our individual and mutual experiences, and shared everything as we lived it. We both even adopted dogs this fall from animal shelters! I felt so bad for leaving her there, felt almost like I was breaking away from my Siamese twin so that I could leave. :( Thanks to Skype and telephones, we're making it through. The time for change has come for both of us, and Whitney will be moving back to the states this summer, when we'll reunite our dogs as well.
Jeff and I have had a tumultuous year, but we're making it through all these changes as well. During one of my interviews this month, I met a Dutch man who is married a Minnesotan woman. He told me that he had met her in the early '80s during a brief vacation to the US before he started his military service in the Netherlands. They wrote letters to each other all the time but were only able to call once a month to speak in-person. They visited each other when they could, but it was only once or twice a year. They carried on like this for several years until he was able to move to the United States to be with her; he told me that looking back, they must have been crazy, but they did it. Now, they live on a farm in central Minnesota with their two children.
I told this story to Jeff, and it made us feel better and stronger, because we're trying to do this relationship long-distance for now as well. And it's tough! However, we've been together for about two years now, and now that I've come to the decision that I can't live in France for the rest of my life, we've got to figure something out. He's been researching and calling French schools in the US to find a job for next fall, and assuming that works out, he'll come here this summer to see if he could live here for good.
Life never gets boring, that's for sure! And while I certainly miss the wine, warmer weather, and my friends in France, I know I'm making the right decision for myself by being here.
