The choice to leave (column of an expatriate in New York: Charlotte Jimenez)

France… I am often asked the question: “why did you leave?”, Or I am given comments such as: “the food, the quality of life, but after all, are you crazy?”

And in fact, I always answer the same thing: “yes, I love my country, no I don’t want to live there.” But why this paradox?

Charlotte Jimenez started his career from French as a Foreign Language teacher in Spain, before coming to teach in New York where she has lived since eight years. She gives us here the reasons for her expatriation.

www.frenchwithcharlotte.com

IG @frenchwithcharlotte

I admit that it’s been ten years since I asked myself this question and that I never really knew how to answer it.

So here is MY own vision, certainly very different from that of most of my fellow citizens.

In France, everything (or almost) is safe, comfortable, smooth, secure, secure, framed, and more or less already everything laid out in advance. I always had this impression that to stay there I had to “fit the mold”. My mother often told me “you don’t act like the others”. When I was little, I took it for something negative. After all, when you’re a kid, you want to be like everyone else. And then, little by little, I said to myself that it might not be that bad to be “different”.

You are going to say to me, “different in what?”. I think in my way of being in general, difficult to explain like that. In any case, something that connects me to other French people who live abroad like me.

Expatriating myself is an “old” dream. Already very small, I longed for a life elsewhere. In the 90s, we did not yet have the Internet, but we already had a lot of foreign films and series. And it fed my imagination as a little girl and made this thirst for something else grow in me.

I first tried Spain, the neighboring country, to go to a place more marked by the sun, music, passion, the joy of living, elements that are essential for me and that I do not have never really found in France. But the Spanish dream ended after a few years, tired by the economic situation and the lack of prospects. Having a master’s degree and earning 500 euros per month, after a while, that doesn’t appeal anymore.

So I packed my bags for a second time, this time with a teacher’s job in New York. Eight years that I am there, a little girl who was born there, and always the same observation: the quality of life is mediocre. To eat well, you have to be prepared to spend more money than usual, or travel several “miles” to find French ingredients or “quite simply” a good baguette. I say “quite simply”, because it must be said, in the United States (and in many countries), finding French food is a luxury! Education is expensive there, health costs do not speak about it! Living here comes at a price. In short, I don’t objectively think that this is the city where we live the best, but you know what? I feel good. I feel this adrenaline that I need to move forward and surpass myself. Encounters, opportunities, and differences. And above all, I feel free: free to think what I want, free to dress as I want, free to be what I want.

It’s like in love: you can find a super handsome guy with his head on his shoulders but with whom we are bored, and another less handsome, less stable but with whom there is an alchemy and a real connection. The perfect guy is France, but the one who suits me best is the foreigner.

For now, coming back would mean giving up my childhood dreams, and therefore getting old. And that is perhaps what scares me in the end: the passage of time and the fear of heights.

www.frenchwithcharlotte.com

---

ADVERTISING :

Similar articles

–

–

Related posts:

They exercise criminal action against 12 alleged suspects

Court reopens Peter R. de Vries murder case at extra session | Inland

The masks are falling off! Who actually gave the Fair to Gergov?

Primary schools in Île-de-France: looking for contract teachers to fill the lack of teachers

Share this:

• Facebook
• X

Related