Recently, I read a fantastic article about injustices in life that we can't help and will just have to accept. All of the items on the list were for the most part accurate, giving me a chuckle here and there. It was the final item that struck home for me. It read: "There is going to be someone who looks at your life, even when it has absolutely no bearing on their own, and feels personally affronted enough by your decision to be an asshole and make disdainful comments about it. This is only a poor reflection on them, and realizing they don’t matter as quickly as possible is the best course of action you can take."
I'm pretty sure I shouted "Amen!" when I read this last part. How many of you out there who decided to do something off the beaten path, adventurous, glamorous, or even scary, and found that it seemed to piss someone off? But their disdain was so subtle where you almost felt like you were the crazy one? I felt tinges of this my first year here, and suspecting that my life abroad was making people uncomfortable, I went out of my way to not talk about it. I had grown so accustomed to this way of comporting myself, even if meant suffocating, and putting a lid on a huge part of who I had become through this experience.
To thank the writer for her excellent post, I left a comment saying that the final item rang true for me, and knowing that she lives in Paris (otherwise I would not have brought it up), I had mentioned I had experienced this from some people back home after I jumped the pond. Within seconds, I got a comment to my comment from an anonymous user (they always are, aren't they?) accusing me of bragging and that is probably why I pissed everyone off. It was such a quick assumption with absolutely no foundation that sadly, has happened to me, and surely to many of you, often. I regretted dropping the "P" bomb because it automatically gave me that stigma.
Why is it that we have to carefully curate how we present ourselves because we live in Paris, or for that matter, anywhere deemed interesting? There are so many rules that I find many of us follow. We're careful not to demonstrate too much happiness because that would be showing off. What about excitement? Nope, that's out too. Don't you dare enjoy that grapefruit-hued sunset sparkling off the Seine! And if you do, you better enjoy it silently sans hashtags. But on the flipside, don't show any discontent because that would be deemed as complaining and not being grateful for what you have been "given". Okay, well what about being annoyed that a former French boyfriend gripped that the back of your thighs resemble the dimply skin of a moldy orange? Well you're in Paris, so being offended is just being bratty. It's frustrating. Can't we just be?
A common theme that keeps revisiting me in my 30s is understanding and accepting that you can't please everyone; a personal character default derived from my Virgo perfectionism. When I find that I am fighting to defend myself, I take a deep breath and go back to my favorite AA saying that my dad used to throw around: Live and Let Live, Man (he added the 'man' part). I'll do my thing, you do yours, and when I have that occasional really awesome day (like pictured above), don't make me feel like asshole for it.
What about you? Have you had any of these growing pains after making a big life change?
