Tis the season of report cards, graduation ceremonies, and mid-year reviews. A time to appreciate the gradual yet often excruciating achievements of the year (like future tense conjugations in French).

 

It’s also the time when a big day shows up in my calendar. Not my birthday or wedding anniversary or my kids' birthdays. None of that. 

 

It’s July 6th. The day I did something so scary I literally thought my heart would explode in my chest. Even thinking about it now makes me quiver a bit. 

 

On July 6th, 1999, I boarded a one-way flight from NYC to Paris, leaving behind my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my four cats, my job, my apartment, and my beloved Brooklyn. 


And for no real reason.


I mean, there were reasons. But they weren’t life-or-death reasons. This wasn’t anything like the exoduses my ancestors took to save their skin generations ago. 

 

It was just that I had this nagging feeling in my belly, this constant, flickering sensation since childhood that I had to live in Paris. 

 

And I knew that if I didn’t listen to this feeling I’d get sucked into the rat race of life in NYC and regret not making a move forever. 

 

So I wrangled up everything I had in me and boarded that plane. The poor woman sitting to my right was so worried about my whimpering that I told her the broad strokes of my story. Reassuring her that everything, really, was ok. That I was doing something I wanted more than anything, it’s just that I was a total emotional wreck.   

 

I landed in Paris the next morning and calmed down the minute I spotted my friend Jessica at the arrival gate. Jessica and I went to college together and did our Junior year abroad in Paris at the same time. She wasted no time sticking around the states after graduation and came right back to Paris where she met her soon-to-be husband Charles at film school.

 

They were the ones that made my Paris experiment a reality. Charles lugged my giant suitcase up the four flights of stairs to their cute flat on rue Leon Blum in the 11th and they set me up on their living room coach for as long as I needed. 

 

Every morning I’d wake up with a view of the gorgeous building across the street and marvel at the shirtless JFK Jr look-a-like who paced around his apartment all day.  

 

I needed no more convincing, this was where I belonged. 

 

For the next few weeks Charles and Jessica took me everywhere they went. We ate charcuterie and drank pitchers of cheap red wine at the local bistrots while I noted down bizarre French idiomatic expressions in my little carnet. We went to the public pools during the heat wave. We dodged the firecrackers thrown at our feet while heading across Place de la Bastille on Bastille Day. We bought some cheap tickets to Corsica and rented a little hut on the beach and made refried beans in a shoddy casserole to save our money—for more wine! 

 

I felt like I was living someone else’s life. I had no strings on me. No obligations. No job. No apartment. And my French was a disaster.


There were definitely moments of “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?” panic.

 

But I was doing it any way. Taking it one day at a time with a mix of queasy fear and determination to make the most of it!

 

It’s been 20 years since I boarded that plane.

 

It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And by far the most important decision of my life. 

 

I’m dying to know, what’s the scariest thing you’ve every done that you’re grateful for today? 

 

That when you think about it you say, “I’m so damn proud I had the guts to do that!” 

 

Just hit reply and let me know.