The Script Ended

alps

In my previous life my husband and I deluded ourselves into thinking that we could afford to stay in luxurious hotels. Boy those were the days........thanks in large part to the all powerful credit card.

Those days are probably long gone for me, as well as lots of other formerly conspicuous consumers. Not such a bad thing really.

But today I am in the Swiss Alps thanks to my work and my duty to develop closer relationships to alumni of my employer. This thankless task has me in a Palace on Lake Geneva facing the Swiss Alps. Needless to say, it is stunning.

Tonight I will pull on my black lace dress and enter a room full of..........complete strangers.

Even me, the consummate extrovert, is a bit intimidated to say the least. Who should I be tonight? The mysterious lone woman in the corner?

Naw - not so good for networking. How about the gregarious American party girl?

Nope again, too old and too tired and too Frenchified for that one now.

I have been on the road all week meeting people I don't know over lunch, coffee, cocktails, and around boardroom tables from London to Geneva and each time I shook hands and sat down, the words sort of flowed out of my mouth. 

So nice to meet you, thank you for taking the time, tell me about your business, world, life path, opportunities, struggles..........
I guess this is doing business, right?

Incredible really, I have been living an out of body experience all week.  I mean, who is that girl (okay okay, I'm not a girl anymore), woman in the suit with the business cards?

I guess it is me. So off to the ball I go.

Wish me luck.

Strange Reflections

Isn't it amazing how fast one can get used to something? Start out doing something that you once would have thought not possible and BOOM - it soon is almost ho-hum, part of the daily routine.

Last week I was running for my train in Jouy-en-Josas, flying over the cobbled streets of this tiny village next to my new employer. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of the boulangerie.

Is this really me? Coat tails flapping, trying not to trip on the round stones that pave the narrow lanes, what am I doing here anyway?

Not all that long ago I spent my days on suburban asphalt....in a car. Cell phone pasted to my ear, radio blaring, on my way to pick-up, drop-off or otherwise take care of kids, Costco, Target, Nordstrom.

Never and I mean NEVER would I have expected to fast forward a couple years and see myself reflected in that French boulangerie window.

And it is all so normal now. I am one of thousands of Parisian communters. I can push and shove with the best of them down the halls of the metro and train stations, permanently in a hurry. Versailles, yes THAT Versailles, is my daily stop, where I change trains to get to Jouy-en-Josas. Where, by the way, they invented toile de jouy, the lovely fabric design that decorators add for sophistication - I should know - I used to be one of those people........

................back in another life.

Diggs in New Jersey

Howard Johnson Motel, Highway 1, New Brunswick, New Jersey...........the Trucker's Rate. Does that say it all or what?

My clean little suburban San Diego sensibilities have definitely been left behind in the dust. I must say that having lived in France for over 3 years now has somehow prepared me for this experience over here on the other side of the tracks better than anything I ever lived Stateside. That is only because living in a foreign country increases one's tolerance for differences rather quickly.

My mission this week is to help install my oldest daughter into Rutgers University to begin her graduate studies. Neither one of us were prepared for our experience so far.

I know that it is not fair but I blame this on my divorce. I am sure that somehow things would be different if my husband had not become "monkified" and had stayed in his chair at our accounting office.

Instead Katie and I are staying within our new budgetary restrictions and eating white bread toast for breakfast this morning in Howard Johnson's lobby as a hysterical patron complained to the management that she was beaten up the previous night by 3 large dark hotel guests brandishing (not her word - too many syllables) guns and threatening to steal her money. All $246 of it to be exact - her complaints were quite specific.

This kind of stuff just doesn't happen at the  Hyatt.

Talk about feeling alien. We are definitely in a foreign country over here.

Just wait until I tell you about the housing choices we have seen from Craig's List - several of them make the HoJo look like a luxury spa.

Yup, that good.

The clutter gene

I was traumatized by growing up in a messy household. Between 6 kids, numerous dogs and 2 pack-rat depression era parents, little was thrown away or put away in my childhood home. Someone ringing the doorbell unexpectedly was cause for panic and the once a year dinner party that my parents hosted was preceded by an all out attack on the state of the house always accompanied by my mother hyperventilating that she would never finish before the guests arrived and my dad's temper tantrums over us kids inability to read his mind and do what he wanted us to do.

I vowed to never live like this once I was in charge. Not that my own household never saw out of control days, but they were never a permanent state and once we could afford it, I had regular cleaning help. In fact, my kids' favorite day was Friday when the cleaning ladies came and we all returned home to a sparkling house that smelled of lemon wax.

I am currently a house guest at the Portland abode of 3 of my daughters. They professed - and I believe them  -that they cleaned for days before my arrival. In fact, while 2 picked me up from the airport, the other was polishing the floor. But, I am afraid,the house has quickly returned to its natural state.

How can I describe this state? Suffice it to say that my parents would feel right at home.

I don't know if it is all the therapy I have been through or a new zen state of maturity on my part but somehow I have been able to relax and enjoy their company surrounded by empty beer bottles, old pizza boxes, shredded dog toys and other assorted dirty dishes, glasses and plain old trash.

Soon enough I will be rattling around in my newly empty Paris nest and frankly that thought makes this cluttered nest look like House Beautiful.

Sylvie

My first friendship with a Parisian woman began before I even moved to Paris. I had met a guy in a cafe when I was over here checking out schools and apartments and in our ensuing conversation (he was an American living in Paris) he had given me the email address of a woman whom he thought I would like. She and I exchanged some emails a few time before I got here and then we quickly met for a coffee when I arrived three years ago. We have been friends ever since.

Sylvie defies the stereotype of the Parisian sophisticate. She is highly intelligent - a Magistrate in the Parisian judicial system - but is as unassuming as you could imagine. Open and always ready to laugh, she sees the world as good.

No matter how depressed I can feel about this or that, when I am with her somehow all the good that is in my life shines through. Her attitude is such a gift.

There is lots to learn from such an attitude. I can't tell you how UN French an attitude like her's is! Most French people are "glass half empty" types. Even the happy ones. It is a national disease. They are soooo good at seeing what could go wrong and why something you want to try will definitely not work.

C'est pas possible, is probably the most common phrase in the French language. Even MFM, who tries to be so supportive, can see hurdles and blockages in an open field.

There really is something to that good ol' American can-do attitude.

I love living in Paris but I am so glad that I am an American. The sky isn't always falling on me like it is for so many of my French neighbors.

Except not on Sylvie.

Bureaucratic, ridiculous and oh so French

I am a Southern California girl, my identity can be mistaken by some today, apparently fooled by my outward Parisian elegance(hah!!) - that is until I open my mouth to reveal my sexy american accent - but in deeply ingrained layers, I am the girl that grew up in LA.

So? Well one of those deeply ingrained characteristics of being from LA is that one is practically born behind the wheel. You cannot live in the LA basin or anywhere in Southern California without 4 wheels and a driver's license and I am old enough to say that I have been behind that wheel for 35 years.

I need to get legal here in Paris - not that I haven't been driving in my new hometown already but I have been enjoying the freedom of not being the owner of a car after practically having one in my bed the better part of my life. I have been lucky - no gendarme has had reason to stop me, no accidents (knock on wood) with surly taxi drivers, no mishaps at all have befallen me whenever I borrowed a car and put my CA drivers license in my pocket just in case.

But now with the job and all I think that I will have to break down and become an owner again - and that comes with the need for insurance and that brings me face to face with one of the most bureaucratic and ridiculous of all the bureaucratic and ridiculous systems that the French have taken pride in inventing.

L'auto école. Never mind those 35+ years behind the wheel - they don't care a whit. To get a license in France, unless you happen to be from one of 11 obscure states, or maybe its 14 - whatever - (apologies to those states - California isn't included regardless, obscure or not) that offer reciprocity IF you turn in that license for a French one within the first year of your arrival (see, it's starting already - the ridiculous part) - you MUST go to the infamous l'auto école (driving school), pay upwards of 1000 euros, compile a dossier of all the famous French stuff (5 id photos, certified translation of your VALID USA license, application in triplicate, 3 locks of hair from your first born sealed in self addressed stamped envelops---------just kidding..............about the hair that is....... and then start studying. And study and study, most of that study is performed in front of endless instruction DVD's full of trick questions and hidden traps - kind of like the real exam.

When you are deemed ready, you sit for a written exam on le code and THEN if you pass that, not a slam dunk by any means, you get to graduate to behind the wheel training with an instructor in one of those bright red (in my school's case) trainer cars with the taxi cab style sign on the roof Auto Ecole which is code for WATCH OUT inexperienced and probably dangerous driver about to stop in front of you for no apparent reason - - -  and THEN once deemed safe on the French roads you have the pleasure of going for your LIVE DRIVING test with the ever so kind and patient (NOT.. by all received accounts) French driving examiner and THEN, IF you pass sometime after all the requisite stamping and triplicate forms, oh and a certified medical exam......you finally have the coveted pink permis B in your hot little hand.

I TOLD you it was bureaucratic and ridiculous - and I even left out the part about having to have my application to even start the process approved by the Perfecture de Police.

I went to my first scintillating DVD session this week. In the practice exam I lost count of my mistakes - in the real one to come you are only allowed 5. 5 out of 40 questions in which there are sometimes up to 3 imbedded questions which means that you are actually allowed 5 errors out of up to 120 questions.

I don't even want to think about my odds........

Help me!! I am still a procrastinator

I have to write my thesis.

I feel like I am back in high school or college - once again crowned the queen of procrastination. This talent for finding anything and everything to do other than what you must do just does NOT go away - I have not forgotten how to waste time - it is kind of like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget. One would think with maturity and my advancing age, this kind of behavior would be firmly in my past but nooooooooo.......cleaning the grout-lines on my kitchen counter still wins over sitting down at my desk and actually getting something down on paper. Or in this case - into Word.

Even this blog is a tool of procrastination. But I am going to make this post into a step forward towards my future 80 page treatise.

My research is on Mid Life Transitions, be they career or personal, overlaid by the template of the Adult Life-cycle. Obviously this subject is quite close to my heart but hey - if I can figure out how to make sense of what has happened to me this last half decade or so, I would be a happy camper, or at least slightly less depressed.

So, now, for how this post, in fact how this blog, will help me towards getting the damn thing started: You are going to help me. I'd love to receive comments from anyone who reads this blog (I know, a sample of 12 probably doesn't qualify as scientific but who cares). What kind of comments? Well anything you would like to say about changes happening in your life, how they relate to where you thought your life was headed, how your goals and dreams may have changed as you get older and why.

That's for starters.

I am planning to throw out a question or a thought as I work through my research on this end and hopefully that will get and keep the conversation going.

What do you think? It is worth a try and besides - my kitchen is now spotless.

No more little helpers

I have a problem. It seems to be getting bigger and I can't seem to get a handle on it. Now that I am more "educated" what with my new studies in coaching and psychology, emotional intelligence, leadership development and all that, I was under the mistaken notion that with all this information and new expertise, I would somehow be better equipped to "fix" myself, not to mention my clients.

Wrong.

At least as far as myself is concerned.

I am the hardest and most demanding client. The paying ones are easier - I seem to be relatively successful at meeting expectations there, luckily.

So, enough build up - here's my problem. Back around April 2004  my life was in a freefall. Looking back today that was when the shit really hit the fan, the complete fallout would take another 3 years but reflecting on that period, my goose was already cooked.

No one could solve my mess but I was offered an insidious helper - drugs. Now this is not what you are all probably thinking (oh my god! a hidden addict). No, this is more socially acceptable than that, and ubiquitous too I might add.

I'm talking anti-anxiety meds and as it happens they are the same little buggers that they give you when you are depressed. Funny about that.........

I was told that this was a good idea because once they took effect I would be able to relearn how it feels to not be anxious and that way, once off the meds (in a few short months.......or years) I could steer myself away from anxiety on my own because I would know the way.

Sounds logical, and besides at that point I was desperate, so I took them.

It was awful at first, I plummeted so low that making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my daughter's lunch bag took a herculean effort (you mean I have to butter the bread AND put it in a zip-lock! It was a daunting task).

The doctor insisted I wait my body out and give it time to adjust. I did and so did it.

Fast forward over lots of hills, valleys, more valleys....and I thought it was just me doing all that traveling.

Wrong again.

January 2009 arrived and I decided that enough was finally and definitely enough - though there had been several aborted attempts before, this was the year of living sans les medicaments.

I did it "right". Tapering slowly and all that - allowing my body and my mind to readjust and find its own equilibrium.

Begs the question - is there such a thing as equilibrium?; knowing what I now know and having slogged my way through so much sh--, I can't tell anymore.

Well anyway, somewhere between May and June I took my last pill.

Gingerly I dipped my mental toe in the water to see if I was indeed all right, that I could cope on my own.

At first all signs were good - phew............I thought.

But then it was as if someone from above said, Hey not so fast buddy! You are not as well equipped as you thought, pas de tout, as the french relish wagging their fingers and saying.

That brings me to today, and the tears that well up at unexpected moments, the insistent yuck feeling pulling me down, the impatience with what used to be just fine.

That's my problem today, and now unfortunately there are no more little helpers, I don't want their help anyway.

All's I have is me.

using what I already know

I was asked to give a talk today on building a network and maintaining and improving client relationships to a group of young French account executives. I was the lunch time entertainment - lucky them.

Now, I love to talk and I really love to meet people and I really really really love to help and inspire the people that I meet. If, of course, it is appropriate to help and inspire them - I don't go around pretending to be the guru of inspiration with my friends - but if I am "hired" to do such a thing I grab the chance and try to rise to the task.

I have to admit though that after a whole 3 1/2 days in my new job, being introduced as the Manager of blah blah blah at Well Known French institution - I felt a bit intimidated by the expectations.

You see, so far at my new job, I have spent my time wondering just exactly how I am going to do what I have been hired to do. Everything seems so loose and full of buzzwords (I hate buzzwords, they are so excluding, if you don't know what they mean you feel like such a dummy.)

But I now have something on my side that I was missing when I was younger.

Age. And the perspective that comes with it. That perspective allows honesty. And honesty will always endear you to a crowd.

That is what I used today as all eyes were on me awaiting my words of wisdom. They knew quickly that I was brand new in my position and what I was going to offer was my experiences trying to succeed at challenges similar to some of theirs'.

You want to know something? It worked.

coming up on 7....I think

There is a french saying about being comme un papillon - like a butterfly. It is usually not a compliment. Flitting around from thing to thing without settling down is abhorrent in the French culture. Around here, if you are not satisfied with your career by your mid-30's, forget it - les carottes sont cuites - it's over ( literal translation: the carrots are cooked), change anything (except of course your spouse) after 40? Quelle horreur !

Thank God I am a foreigner - it must give me some kind of dispensation around here because tomorrow (yes, tomorrow) I start on what I think is my 7th, but whose counting, career. This time in a big official French institution - who would ever have guessed?

My title (I think - I will tell you for sure tomorrow) is Senior Manager Corporate and Career Development. Some distance from CPA at an accounting firm, but then again the furthest from that start has to go to my culinary stint or maybe my interior design business.........oh wait....no.......maybe the longest stretch from there has to be when I was in the fashion business....or maybe it was when I was teaching business English - naw that's not that different from accounting....accounting is part of business....cookbook translator, french tours operator.....forget it. I can't decide which career I have had is the most different from accounting and it really doesn't matter. However, just as an aside, I don't think that I was cut out to be a diligent little accountant forever.

But do you see what I mean? All that stuff was on my resumé, of course cast in a-  oh so professional light, and this major, stuffy, old world very French institution STILL hired me!

They even were fooled into thinking that I could speak French!

Maybe career # 8 will be as an impersonator....or ventriloquist.