MY FRENCH ADVENTURE-CHAPTER 6
Three Weeks Into My New Life In France
I make another decision, sort of
In the three weeks after Joe flew back to the States, I alternated between feeling completely bereft and alone in a foreign country to elated at the novelty of living in a foreign country, and back to alone and bereft.
Skyping was a lifeline — but the nine-hour time difference between France and my family and friends on America’s West Coast wasn’t good for spontaneous calls of the ‘I just need to hear a familiar voice’ variety. But even without the time difference, those weren’t the sort of calls I wanted to make.
Since I’d chosen to move to a foreign country, I felt the need to resolve whatever problems arose, rather than dumping the consequences of my decision on others. Even my most tolerant friends might not have been thrilled by wee-hour phone calls from weepy 68-year-old me. All alone in France and surprise, surprise, she’s feeling just a teeny bit blue and homesick.
I would dry my eyes and suffer, oh so bravely, in silence. With just the tiniest soupçon of self-pity.
During those early weeks, I’d get through difficult nights reading memoirs from others who had moved to France. One of them, Under the Ripening Sun, by Patricia Atkinson, managed…
