LIVING IN FRANCE

Moving To A Foreign Country Isn’t Easy At Any Age. Is It Easier With A Partner?

Perhaps. But My Experience Would Have Been Quite Different

I’ve lived in France for nine years. Except for the past three, I’ve lived alone. I lived alone for years in the States. I lived alone when I was bringing up my kids. A marriage or two. Or three. But most of my life I’ve lived alone.

And quite content to live that way.

Living alone you’re never wrong. No more blame game. Out of toilet paper, whose fault is that? Cobwebs? Unmade bed? If I don’t care . . .no big deal.

The failed expectations that doom so many relationships — your own and your partner’s — aren’t an issue when you live alone. Disappointment in yourself is one thing, disappointing a partner or being disappointed by a partner is something else, usually fraught with far more pain and guilt.

On your own, you’re free to make decisions without having to run them by anyone. Big decisions — like, at 68, deciding to move to France. Alone.

With very little planning — other than leasing an apartment online — sight unseen. Just three suitcases . . . and an estranged husband who flew with me to France to help me get settled in. We were still on friendly terms. In a weak moment, I asked if he’d consider staying. He said no.

Which was just as well.

Someone recently asked me if I thought the experience of moving to France would have been different if I’d come here with a partner. The short answer is yes. Depending on the partner, I’m sure it would have been very different.

In fact, it might never have happened.

I can imagine the discussions. A partner, any partner — most likely someone less impulsive than myself, which isn’t saying much — would have insisted on weighing the pros and cons of moving abroad.

While I rhapsodised about the food, the wine, the excitement and adventure, the hypothetical partner would probably, and quite rightly, question the wisdom of such a big move late in life. He might mention health issues, financial issues, concerns about living far from friends and family. All legitimate topics that anyone considering a big move should raise.

And, frankly, I’m not sure I could have successfully countered them. What would I do if this, that or the other happened? No idea. A friend once told me that I had the greatest tolerance for ambiguity of anyone she’d ever known. I’m not sure she meant it as a compliment.

I imagine that at some point in our discussion, my hypothetical partner’s reasonable concerns might have succeeded in bursting my bubble of enthusiasm — maybe I’d have even dropped the whole idea. Consigned it to the list of things I’d love to do, but probably never would.

But I had no partner to consult. I discussed it with friends and family — although not in any great detail and felt they generally supported my decision. Essentially though I made it alone. And, while I’m not advocating the act now, think later approach, I do feel you can what if the life out of almost anything and end up doing nothing.

As I write this, I’m having difficulty imagining abandoning something I felt very strongly about — like moving to France. Maybe I’d have ended up being so resentful at my hypothetical partner for not buying into my idea that the relationship would fray and before long I’d be living alone again . . . as I’ve done for so much of my life.

Headstrong and selfish, moi?

It’s hard to imagine what my early years in France would have been like with a partner. Take the question I got most often about moving here — won’t you be lonely?

Journal entries from back then suggest that there were a few moments

As I write this, I’m feeling ever so slightly melancholy. Nothing more than I ever felt back in the States, just a vague bluesy feeling. But melancholy here in the land of cheap wine and good bread and cheese? A bit ungrateful, non? Where’s the joie de vivre? Shouldn’t excitement and discovery colour everything? Well, yes and no.

Some days do seem that way; nothing escapes my attention. Buying eggs is an adventure. Other days, not so much. I miss the familiar. I tire of not being able to express myself. I . think I’m feeling ever so slightly homesick.

But here’s the silver lining. The cavalry is arriving! In two weeks, the charge of visitors from the States (led by Marilla; Kit, back in May, was the advance party ) bringing themselves . . . and emergency supplies of taco seasoning, peanut butter and Aleve. I can’t wait!

Visitors in those first few months definitely helped combat the loneliness. But then the visits ended and I was alone again. This entry after my daughter and her husband’s Christmas visit.

Just back from dropping off Carolyn and Bill at Mosson. Feeling that familiar sort of wistfulness when visitors leave, although a bit more strongly this time, also the fact that all the previous visits were sort of the lead up to this and now the ‘visiting season at least at this apartment is probably over

In what always seems an unbelievably short time, there are the goodbye hugs at the station and I return to an apartment still filled with the aromas of the last shared meal and which, after all the talk and laughter and music seems strangely quiet. The wistfulness is a little more intense this time and as I write this I feel the sting of tears, but I know too that in a day or so I will have recovered the rhythm of my life here.

I will write and read and work on my French and feel that small thrill of making myself understood in a foreign language. I’ll walk through the vineyards that I’ve now seen in all seasons and feel centered and incredibly lucky to be having this adventure.

Three years ago, I began a new chapter of my life in what was already a new chapter — moving to France. This new, new chapter involves living with someone — something my partner and I both vowed we’d never do again, but chose to do anyway.

One of the lovely things about it — and there are many — is the feeling of having someone here for me. Support, encouragement, companionship, all of those things and just the small moments of contentment.

We eat breakfast at a small table that looks out over the village rooftops and watch the swifts and house martins build nests in the eaves. Evenings, we drink wine in the garden — where I’m growing roses and tomatoes and pretending to understand gardening advice, en francais, from passing villagers.

So yes, my early years in France would obviously have been quite different if I’d been sharing the experience with a companion. In some ways, I can see how it might have been easier. Evenings and weekends often felt a little isolating, especially at first. Dining out would probably have been more fun with someone special across the table.

But now, three years into a relationship and no longer living alone, I’m aware of how my life has changed.

The kind of spontaneous things I once did — trips to Toulouse, or Avignon, for a quick change of scenery, or deciding to head off to Brittany to escape the Languedoc summer heat — now, understandably, require discussion. Even small stuff, a sudden trip to the supermarket because there’s this recipe for something or other and I need whatever is likely to be up for discussion — if just because we only have one car.

No complaints. I’m nothing if not adaptive.

I came to France to essentially uproot myself, to discover a new culture, a new way of life. I’ve never regretted the decision. But now as the adventure takes a new and slightly different direction, I’m glad to have had the experience of doing it alone and on my terms.

Or, to paraphrase Sinatra — To have done it my way.

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Many thanks!