For a week now I’ve been on British soil. I came over with my step-dad for my step-sister’s birthday and to visit other family and friends. It’s been a busy trip. I’m tired from the travelling round and the all the socialising, but I am also totally blissed out.
As we rolled off the ferry into England I felt relief wash over me, a feeling of coming home. Of course, I have no house here, nowhere to live, but this country, this beautiful, bustling country feels like home to me, even after over 3 years as an expat.
It’s no secret that I struggle with life in France, my location, inability to drive and mental illness makes life awkward, but when I’m in the UK I feel happier, less in my head, less out of touch with reality. It’s an amazing feeling, feeling you belong, and having become an expat I now know where I belong, but sadly it isn’t in the house, or country, I live in.
The idea of leaving, again, and having to spend more time in France makes me feel sick with sadness. I know I have no choice, no options, but I so desperately don’t want to let go of this feeling. I feel so happy here, so content, so much more self assured and confident. I have been mooching round shops full of people without feeling overly anxious, I have ordered coffee on my own while my step-dad got a table without anxiety washing over me, I feel like me again.
I am trying so hard not to think about going back to France because, even writing this, I just well up and want to cry. Everything feels so wrong there, everything is so different.
I appreciate that I needed some time out to recuperate, to get my stuff together and start healing. Initially France was good for me, but now I’m ready to come home.
