An Expat in France… Chapter 0

As it is with every major life change, the main protagonist of that particular life gets thrown into a maelstrom of plans, situations, and challenges that can never be anticipated and prepared for in the fullest. And therein lies the key of fully understanding my current state. As a classic ENTJ-A personality, I lose footing if I don’t have a clear plan that was forged days, weeks or even months before, meticulously drawn out and with its own set of alternatives (B, C, or even all the way to Z). But right now, I’m running on plan 0. All the points are muddled and hazy, and it all feels… unstable. Therefore, I feel like I’m not on stable ground and the plans that I’m trying to set forth are too up in the air for me to be confident in them.

Enough of this wobbly walk. Usually I allow myself half a day of adjusting after an impact of some kind, but in the space of 24 hours I am back on my feet, devising a solution, starting to move and thus breaking the „feeling useless“ stale state. It might sound arrogant even, but I don’t think any situation on the level of seriousness such as mine would warrant dragging your feet for more than a day. Thus, I am declaring an end to this. It is utterly unnatural for my personality and it is also highly unproductive. Literally no use for any of this. Now, I might feel compelled to say that it is the crux of things that it both demands a space for mental readjustment as well as time in general to sort things out in a new country, but the need for structure is greater.

And it’s not like I haven’t had some plans in the past month and a half since coming to France, but these mostly manifested themselves as short-term (for example, for an interesting online conference in the second week of December).  Therefore, it’s time to face the music: 2022 needs to look like an intricate spiderweb of precise dates, tasks and goals. Here’s to reveling in my true nature!

~ Exposition to follow in Chapter 1 ~