I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances
confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live
that life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind,
will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal
that life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind,
will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal
laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him. If
you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost that
is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost that
is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry Thoreau, Walden
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself where I am. Sometimes I get helpful reminders, like when I am walking down a random street and the Eiffel Tower appears from behind a building, around the corner, or as I'm emerging from the metro tunnel; or when I have to make an important phone call, and I first have to ask if they "Parlez anglais?"; or when I go grocery shopping and can't understand why they have fives varieties of cornichons on the shelves but no chicken broth.
There have been some stressful moments since the move, but mostly I feel really lucky. I am living in Paris. Thomas and the beagles will be joining me in less than two months. My organization is helping with and paying for our move. Lucky, but not "dream" come true. More like goal achieved.
Thoreau should have used the word "goal" instead of "dream." Dream seems distant as something for which you should always strive but should remain just out of reach, because a dream once realized soon becomes ordinary and are no longer sparkly, ethereal, or hopeful.
You chose a goal. You create a plan and work towards its achievement. Thomas and I decide we wanted to live overseas. We decided to accept this job offer in Paris. We never used the words "dream". We never used the word "hope". We knew moving our lives to France was not going to be easy- our network of friends were all state sides, we would have to quickly learn the language, and the French bureaucracy is quiet infamous. Still it was something we wanted, so we created a general plan and checked off items one at a time.
1) Find a temporary apartment for me so I can start my job June 4th (check). We used the homeway website and found me a nice studio in the 14th arrondissment four days before I left the states. The owner ended up being super nice and even invited me over for an aperatif a few weeks ago.
2) Start my job (check) and find someone to help us find an apartment (check). We toyed with the idea of finding an apartment on our own. While my french is good enough to comprehend the advertisements, it was not good enough to call a realty agency, ask questions, understand the lease agreement, understand odd behavior of french property owners.
3) Find an apartment we liked (check). My confidence in the success of this item waivered up and down over the last few weeks. We hired a relocator, so I thought it would be a breeze. But then she hurt her ankle a week before we wanted to look at apartments. We didn't know if she could show us something Thursday (Thomas' last full day in Paris) until the Wednesday before. We also realized that even though our initial budget for housing was more than ample for the neighborhood, unwritten rental rules on rent to salary ratio and the need for proof of actual (my) income meant we had to decrease our budget by 30%. All this meant we would see two apartments before Thomas left Paris. But that was all we needed. We found a nice apartment in the neighborhood of our choice. The next bump in the road was to convince the owner he didn't need to insure us for unpaid rent (note that we aren't insurable b/c we don't have all the needed documents).Apparently, a good lawyer is all the French needs to pay one months rent but stay two years in an apartment. These games and the fact that it is extremely hard to kick a tenant out, makes it hard for those of us who just want a nice place to stay to get an owner to trust us. It took the director of the realty agency and our relocator to attest to the owner that Thomas and I would pay our rent. It took two days to get this issue settled. (The relocator earned her fee at this moment-- I could not have navigated those waters). So today we officially have an apartment. (check)
We've taken some big steps since the beginning of June. Or as Thoreau would say, we moved (are moving) to Paris and now we are working on putting the foundation underneath our "dream".
Now on to the next items on our list: move our stuff from Arlington to Paris; move Thomas and the beagles to Paris; and many many more steps depending of what else we want to do.
What I've learned from all this it to stop dreaming. Stop talking. And start moving forward.
After taking one step at a time, I found myself here.
