Pardon me for not blogging for a while! I went on vacation in the middle of March, and coming back after required much more catching-up than I thought it would. But here I am!
Last week, Facebook reminded me of a memory from five years ago: I’m sitting outside of a café in Paris, wearing a turtleneck and sunglasses, attempting to smile without smiling; in the next frame is a beautiful crepe galette with rich brown buckwheat crepe and a sunny side up egg smack in the middle. I recorded this moment via selfie, apologizing to Anthony Bourdain for not being able to eat the egg part of the crepe—it smelled too much like egg for me to even consider eating it.
The important part here is that it was on that trip to Paris that I decided to quit my job and become a writer.
I was 30 years old, my father had been deceased for six months, and my job had devolved into a type of emotional abuse with which my subconscious was familiar. Honestly, I felt like I was eight years old again. I decided to travel alone because I’d never really done that before. I’d studied abroad and galivanted all around Europe, but with girlfriends, with whom we could watch out for each other, as my mother always dictated. I was afraid to travel alone—what if someone followed me and found out where I was staying? What if someone tried to assault me and there was no one there to help protect me? What if my wallet was stolen and I got stranded? Many of these fears were understandable, but not all that likely, when I thought about it. The only way to no longer be afraid was to show myself that I could do it. So, I did.
Although the purpose was for me to exist elsewhere as a solo individual, I met up with a couple of friends, since I’m blessed to have friends around the world. One of them, Laetitia, was a delightful woman from Lyon who’d done a semester abroad at Georgetown while I was there for my MBA. She and I hit it off as teammates on a project, and it was such a joy to see her in Paris. She took me to a restaurant that served Lyonnaise food, and I swear, it’s still one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life. She told me about how great her life in Paris was: she was single, in her early 30s, had no intentions of settling down anytime soon, and loved her job. But, she admitted, if she could, she would leave it all behind, “And write poetry.”
I told her I’d been thinking about leaving my job to take up writing; not poetry, but a memoir and maybe fiction, which I’d loved since middle school.
“If you can do it, do it! I would do it,” she said.
I would say this planted a seed, but it actually watered a seed that had already started germinating and blooming into a tiny plant. I’d already been thinking about it, it seemed that every sermon I heard at church alluded to it, strangers I met would tell me unaided about risks they’d taken. It couldn’t be anymore clear that this was what I was being called to do.
I waited until mid-July to actually leave my job, mostly due to the practicalities of my 401k vesting schedule (I’m no fool—that would have left money on the table), and so began a three-month journey of waiting to be my next self, as it were.
I reflected on this on that Facebook memory, and two of my friends’ comments stood out to me most. One said, “Happy re-birth day!” And another said, “I can see the woman in you reaching back to grab that girl’s hand, as the two of you walked the streets of an unfamiliar world.” Both of which brought me to the brink of tears because of their truth.
I became a new person on that trip—that person is a closer version to the me you see today. I’m proud of her for choosing to honor 8-year-old her, the one who relied on books to show her worlds she preferred.
I’m so glad I listened to the nudges that brought me so many steps closer to the truth.