Women Living In Paris
I belong to a group on Facebook called Women Living in Paris. I recently joined after telling a friend there are great groups for expats there. I was helping her search and stumbled upon the group. The Women Living in Paris group is private with over 27,000 members. The women are extremely diverse and consist of both expats and locals. The women are all ages and ethnicities. It is exclusively for women and transgender women. No men allowed! I enjoy reading some of the posts. What strikes me most is the pain, turmoil, and angst of the twenty-something’s in the group. It mostly stems around boyfriend/man issues. Either finding a good one or whether to hang on to a bad one. Sometimes it’s about work. Often it’s about finding places to live. Twenties is such a difficult time in life to navigate. I don't miss any of it. Twenties is about finding yourself. It’s more about learning about what you do not want as opposed to what you do. It’s also learning about needs of survival not necessarily wants and desires. Self-negotiation. The posts from the early thirty-something’s are a lot of the same but with less edge to them. The later thirty’s seem to be more about navigating work and family. I don’t see many posts from the forty’s plus ladies although there will be an occasional comment. I have also noticed that when the older ladies do comment on a younger ladies’ post, it is often met with disdain. This makes me sad. Older people have sage advice. There is wisdom that comes with time. People don’t know what they don’t know.
I was watching an interview with Oprah and Michelle Obama awhile back. During “The Light We Carry” interview, Michelle mentioned her “table”. It consists of about twelve women from her inner circle of various ages and backgrounds. I completely identify with this. It is so important for your circle to be diverse. If you are only with like-minded people, then growth becomes stunted. Your ideas won’t get nurtured. Your thoughts and feelings will go unchallenged. Looking at the world through different lenses is essential to our spirits.
After reading several posts in Women Living in Paris, I decided to make a conscious effort to start looking at things from another person’s perspective. I have decided I should try on their shoes before interjecting my thoughts and opinions. It’s easy for me to speak from my own experience of a given situation, which I often do. I am very quick to equate my own experience to what is happening to someone else before stepping into the place where they are standing. I believe it’s the empath in me. I immediately take on what the person is feeling, but from my own perspective. I have decided that I need to see it from theirs. This will take time and practice for me.
My daughter and I talk almost daily. If we don't chat on the telephone, we text throughout the day. Yesterday we talked about how drama seems to seek her out and how she deals with it. She’s a tough cookie and often doesn’t reach out to the people in her circle when she’s going through something. As her mom, I can sense her struggling and I draw it out. She handles her business, no doubt! I love that about her. We talked about how situations find her, not the other way around. Unfortunately, we know many in our circle that seek out said drama. I believe it’s natural in our twenties to do that. It’s a part of finding our way. However, if you are in your late thirties and older, and if you’re seeking it out or making small issues into mountains, then there has to be a deeper reason. I believe, and I am no expert, that it’s because we get comfortable in our discomfort. Especially if we come from a traumatic beginning. The pain and anguish are familiar. Some are happier when they are unhappy. Seems counterintuitive, but there is a comfort there. Deciding to step away from what is familiar, even if it’s awful, is difficult.
My oral surgeon told me that he often tells people about me. The way that I packed up my life and moved to Paris because I dreamed of living there. I was surprised that this highly educated and gifted man would be impressed with my story. He was also impressed that my daughter Amber reinvented her life in Chicago this past summer, by basically doing the same thing as me. He said obviously she inherited my “bad genes”. I said, well, “cats don’t have dogs!” All was said tongue in cheek... pardon the pun.
I have had many people tell me that my move to France was something that they themselves could never do. It never occurred to me that what I did was impressive. Especially when I see all of the women in the Women Living In Paris group doing the same thing as me. Some are there by choice and some by circumstance, but all trying to make a life in a foreign place nonetheless. It was not an easy decision. Life-changing, or rather life-affirming decisions never are. I like to think of it as moving forward into the next chapter. Fear is paralyzing. Am I fearless? Nope. What I am is brave... and I get that from my mama.
