Moving to France: What I Didn't Expect
A year in, what I wish someone had told me before the plane landed.
The paperwork is a love language
No one warned me that the first six months of life in France would happen in a folder. A folder I would carry to the prefecture, to the bank, to the electricity company, to the man at the cheese counter who, inexplicably, also needed proof of address.
But here's the thing about French paperwork: it slows you down on purpose. It teaches you to wait. It teaches you that nothing is urgent in the way you thought it was.
The language rearranges you
I thought I would learn French. I did not anticipate that French would, very slowly, learn me — that I would become a softer person in it, more patient, more willing to let a sentence trail.
There are versions of myself that only exist in French. A girl who says 'bon courage' and means it. A woman who asks for help.
The tenderness of strangers
The pharmacist who walked me through every box. The neighbor who left a jar of confiture on my doorstep without a note. The bus driver who waited.
France is not, contrary to the rumor, a cold country. It is a country that loves you quietly, and only once it has decided you are staying.
