When You’re Already Beating Yourself Up Over Everything, Run Like Hell From The Guy With The Verbal

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rlier and he was still in shock. They’d always thought he would go first. But she was gone and the house they’d bought together was no longer home, he’d forget to eat and sit around at night listening to sad songs until, he said, he wanted to die himself.He teased me unmercifully about my Pollyanna take on life. What I call negativity, he saw as realism. Even before his wife s died, he said he always saw the downside of things. Cautious and careful he absolutely could not fathom the idea that I’d impulsively decided to move by myself to France.. Especially, he never failed to add.“At your age.”He was not alone in his opinion.“ I couldn’t do what you did, live so far away from my kids and grandchildren,” a friend in California had written. “ She’d wished me the best though, said she hoped I was ‘at peace’ with my decision. Subtext, or my take on it. Hope you’re at peace with abandoning your family. Years on, her e-mail still rankles. The grain of truth in it, maybe.“How’s the book coming on?” Mr D&G asked, knowing full well what my answer would be. He grinned. “You’re never going to finish that bloody thing, are you?”In the midst of th

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e crowd, I could feel myself slipping into depression. No one’s fault. Neither Mr Doom and Gloom nor my California friend were saying anything I hadn’t heard before in one form or other. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. If your later years are a time to reflect, all I could see was a ragtag bag of unfinished bits and pieces.A book I’d told everyone I was coming to France to finish, but probably never would. Living in France, but barely speaking the language. A weirdly amorphous sense of myself — British with a UK passport and adult chidren back in the States who who may or may not feel abandoned. A marriage that had never permanently ended. An accent that some insist is American and others immediately peg as English.I drank my wine and listened to Mr. D&G. He was going to put his house up for sale, he said. Then he was going back to England. His home, he insisted. No matter how many years he’d lived in France, England was where he belonged. “With people who speak my language.”“I’m going home,” he said, “And that’s what you should do.”I finished my plonk, wished him bonne soirée and slipped out into the dark night.</article></body>

When You’re Already Beating Yourself Up Over Everything You’ve Said Or Done, Run Like Hell From The Guy With The Verbal Stick . . .

I should have known better, I’d encountered him before.

It was Fish and Chips night at the village community hall. A mobile chippy van, operated by a couple of ex-pat Brits makes the rounds of local villages. Beer battered fish and chunky chips smothered in salt and soused in vinegar. Mushy peas, pies and beer and wine on tap. Balm to the mostly retired British couples and a tasty novelty to the French.

Mr Doom and Gloom had collared me almost before I’d taken my first sip of plonk.

“What if something happened to you?” he went on “You’re so far from home, what would you do?

His wife had died a few months earlier and he was still in shock. They’d always thought he would go first. But she was gone and the house they’d bought together was no longer home, he’d forget to eat and sit around at night listening to sad songs until, he said, he wanted to die himself.

He teased me unmercifully about my Pollyanna take on life. What I call negativity, he saw as realism. Even before his wife s died, he said he always saw the downside of things. Cautious and careful he absolutely could not fathom the idea that I’d impulsively decided to move by myself to France.. Especially, he never failed to add.“At your age.”

He was not alone in his opinion.“ I couldn’t do what you did, live so far away from my kids and grandchildren,” a friend in California had written. “ She’d wished me the best though, said she hoped I was ‘at peace’ with my decision. Subtext, or my take on it. Hope you’re at peace with abandoning your family. Years on, her e-mail still rankles. The grain of truth in it, maybe.

“How’s the book coming on?” Mr D&G asked, knowing full well what my answer would be. He grinned. “You’re never going to finish that bloody thing, are you?”

In the midst of the crowd, I could feel myself slipping into depression. No one’s fault. Neither Mr Doom and Gloom nor my California friend were saying anything I hadn’t heard before in one form or other. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. If your later years are a time to reflect, all I could see was a ragtag bag of unfinished bits and pieces.

A book I’d told everyone I was coming to France to finish, but probably never would. Living in France, but barely speaking the language. A weirdly amorphous sense of myself — British with a UK passport and adult chidren back in the States who who may or may not feel abandoned. A marriage that had never permanently ended. An accent that some insist is American and others immediately peg as English.

I drank my wine and listened to Mr. D&G. He was going to put his house up for sale, he said. Then he was going back to England. His home, he insisted. No matter how many years he’d lived in France, England was where he belonged. “With people who speak my language.”

“I’m going home,” he said, “And that’s what you should do.”

I finished my plonk, wished him bonne soirée and slipped out into the dark night.