Not in Our Timeline

On grief, leaving, and the slow unlearning of some of the myths that bind us*.

I sometimes say that my wife and I always wanted to live abroad—and that’s true. But it’s also true that we had a whole life envisioned in America. We made plans, built careers, invested in a community. We believed in that path, or at least in the version of it we thought was possible. Some of it we chose consciously; some of it we inherited without questioning. But that version of life that we counted on doesn’t exist anymore. And realizing that doesn’t happen in an instant. It’s something you slowly come to understand, especially when you’re standing in a very different system, in a very different country, like France. It takes time to notice what you’ve let go of - and what you haven’t.

There are different levels of understanding: you can understand a thing intellectually, but then to know it and to be able to act from that knowing…? Well, that understanding and that knowing can remain very far apart for a long time.

This is another one of those pieces I’ve had trouble pulling toget…