I received a job offer Friday morning. It was a temporary, part-time job that didn't pay very well, but it came with a studio apartment in a suburb of Paris, a fifteen minute train ride from the heart of the city. My time would have been split between working and taking French classes in the city. I would have had my evenings and weekends to myself. Can you see me, strolling along the Seine on a Saturday morning, stopping at a street cafe for un chocolat chaud et une tartine?
I've been anxious and stressed and distracted all weekend. This morning, I turned the job offer down. My heart is breaking a little. Ten months in Paris and I decided not to go? I can't decide if I was more crazy for deciding not to go or for considering it in the first place.
France would have been a distraction. A distraction filled with delicious pastries and visits to the Musee d'Orsay and finally being fluent in French, but still a distraction. I've been seeking desperately for a way out of my stagnated life. I'm hankering after change, something different. I was sure something different that happened to come with the magic of Paris would have been the perfect thing. It's not. An external change is not the sort of change I need. A different place, a different job, and different people wouldn't have given me the change I need. That change is an internal one.
This next year is going to be different. Not because I'm in a different place, but because I'm going to be different. Likely, nobody will notice the changes; they are small and internal. I will notice and that will make all the difference.
Can you tell them to give the job to me? :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would have had the courage to make the same decision in your place, but I deeply, sincerely admire you for being so strong. It's so tempting to drop everything and live a fairy tale but coming home after that and starting up real life again might have been soul-crushingly depressing. I am seriously so amazed that you were able to resist!
ReplyDeleteWow! I didn't know you were offered a job in Paris! Part of me wants to say, "Why didn't you take that job???!!!" But the other part of me knows why, and I think you are right :) Internal changes will make the post difference. And you can always go to Paris with me instead :)
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