It was almost 13 years ago that a young 14 year old version of myself packed his bags in Lancaster, Ohio and headed to France with his family for a then undeterminable amount of time. Five years later I packed my bags and headed back to the states for college.
I did my obligatory 4 years of undergrad and then an additional 4 years of teaching, waiting tables, transcribing phone calls, installing/disassembling corporate conference AV equipment, dabbling in special education and property maintenance. Come October, you can add English teacher in France to that list.
In two days I'll be getting on a plane and flying back to France to live for another year. This time I'm not a naïve 14 year old whose only foreign language experience was 3 weeks of French lessons at the local university. I'm a grown adult with responsibilities, experience and a few wrinkles here and there. I am tempted to take a stab at hypothesizing how this year will blossom but that would mean having expectations, and if there's one thing I've learned: life is much more complex and random for one person to try to predict an outcome to.
Instead, I'll just concentrate on what I do know: all of my belongings are either in storage or in a couple of suitcases to my right. My Dad is kindly driving me to Chicago to catch my flight and I still have no place to live when I get there. That latter part might drive a few people insane but I'm taking deep breaths and concentrating on baby-stepping my way to Paris - to Ashley - and then figure it out as I go along from there.
PS: Man, I am suddenly really looking forward to crème fraîche....
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