I know, I’ve been a bad blogger and I’m sorry for that. The past few months since our move to the US I’ve wanted to sit down more times than I can count to write all kinds of different posts. Posts about being depressed about my “life” in the US, about regretting the move from France, about all the things I miss about France, about my job search, about once again feeling like a failure here, but here in the US this time, and about countless other, very negative, topics. But each time I held myself back. I didn’t want to complain, I wanted to at the very least make it seem like I was thrilled with the move to the US, and maybe in the process of pretending, I would actually be able to convince myself of it too.
So in the end I just avoided blogging because I had nothing good to say. And then, in February, when my dream job became available, I started to feel more positive. This was my dream job, the exact job I’ve wanted for 7 years, the only job I had in mind when I decided to move back to the US. But still I didn’t want to jinx it, so I said nothing and just hoped. I applied, made it through the first round of the hiring process and onto the second. And then after my phone interview, I hit rock bottom when, at 10:30pm on a Saturday night I received an email while I was out to dinner with a friend informing me that I would not make it on to the final round, the face to face interview. And I cried. Like a little baby. For multiple days.
I started to question even more the decision to move back to the US. I started to feel like a hopeless failure who couldn’t even manage to get the one job I was the most qualified for; the job I really always thought about and dreamt about, the job possibility that made me so incredibly depressed about my “career” and options in France. I started to think that there was no hope for me at all; that a career that made me happy was just not in the cards for me. The entire time I was in France I kept telling myself that it was being in France that was keeping me back from professional satisfaction; that if only we were in the US things would be better and I would actually be able to have a happy professional life. And this rejection just made me feel like even that was just a dream. I felt like even in the US I couldn’t have that happy career that I had always told myself would be possible, just not in France. I even started to think about wanting to move back to France already, without even giving the US a real try like Lionel and I had agreed to do. You know what they say, the grass is always greener…
But I forced myself to stay silent and not post any of my unhappy and unpleasant thoughts on my blog. And I’m proud of myself for not having given in. In the end it has been totally worth it because one month ago exactly I started
MY NEW JOB!!!
Yep, that’s right.
My new job! I found a job, and in the end I’m pretty impressed by how quickly I found it. Though it felt like ages and I was feeling so depressed about the process, in the end, it only took me 2 months and 3 weeks to find a job. And not just any job, but a job that I actually wanted. They say that on average in the US it takes a person about 9 months to find a job right now, so I think I did pretty well, especially considering the fact that I turned down two other offers before this. And while it isn’t my dream job, I do like it a lot so far. And I’m extremely happy to no longer be teaching! It makes me feel vindicated as well because in the end it did turn out that I was right and I could find professional satisfaction in the US. And pretty quickly too (though I don’t want to jinx myself here…). So, at least professionally speaking, I am quite happy with our decision to move to the US. But more on that and more on the job later…
