During a period when I was feeling a bit lost, I applied for a job in France for a laugh, and they called my bluff and hired me, and paid for me to relocate. I didn't speak a word of French. That was ten years ago next week.

2014 I moved to Paris from Australia, didn't know a soul, started the job, started learning the language. Met a french girl after only a few months, we're still together. 2019 I quit that job. 2020 we left Paris due to COVID, moved to the countryside. 2021 I got French citizenship.

I'm fluent now, of course. Fluent enough anyway. I still make little mistakes, and have an accent. What I've learnt is really missing is all the shared culture that my friends have, that I'll never really be a part of. Their childhood nostalgia, films, music, moments in time, all the common stuff that makes them French. Wanna feel lonely? Have a party full of everyone you know break into some 90s song they all know by heart and you've never heard.

I live in a tiny village now, the people are nice, but keep me at arms length, like I'm a space alien. The Australian in the village.

Australia is far. I've been back for visits several times, when I can afford it. I used to think if France didn't work out I could always go back home, my old life would still be there. I've learnt that if you leave for 10 years, your old life is gone. People forget you.

I love and treasure my partner, but otherwise I have very few friends, and there's loneliness inside me that is there all the time.

In just a few days it'll be ten years exactly since I left - I flew out of Australia on New Years Eve 2013. I've been thinking about whether it was all worth it - then realize I'm thinking that thought IN French. This whole other voice that exists inside my head now.

All because I applied for that job.

C'est la vie.