It’s late May. It’s been six months since I have posted a finished article. Back then, my plan for the upcoming months was to publish articles which have been written so long ago that I have almost forgotten about their existence. Most of them were about my stay in England, Canada and in France, where I worked last winter. France is the last country where I have planned to start a new tax history. The aim of the trip was to put some money aside and to make first step towards stabilization and ultimately to settle down. Winter season 2018/2019 was supposed to be a time where I could focus on a few goals and being on the move towards an unknown doesn’t help to accomplish them. Hence why I had a solid plan and opted against being spontaneous this time around.
As often happens, fate quickly and surely verified those plans and proved again that being an optimist is never a guarantee of getting what you want. Even though I have learned to expect nothing and would rather be positively surprised than disappointed, I still hoped that I would more often experience the first one rather than the latter.
Last season in Norway have done me well but clearly turned me soft and slighlty unpreprared for when things are going haywire. I was thus not so expectant of what happened during my stay in the Croissant Kingdom. After all this years I have learned that very often what the job description says and what is being promised by the employer does not match the reality once you are on the job. I was hired for a position of a receptionist at the hotel and was guaranteed to have my own lodgings. Meanwhile what they were trying to do, was to give me the duties of a manager with a ‘glamorous’ accommodation in the basement shared with the rest of the staff. My coworkers, younger by a whole decade made sure that I quickly forgot the feeling of a good night’s sleep. Sometimes they woke me up during the night, often more than once, and it seemed that my manifestations irritation were going unnoticed. On the other hand, how hypocritical of me because at their age I used to do the same and only wonder at other people’s annoyance. Serves me right, I guess. During the three weeks of work at Chalet Regina, a lot happened. I had never been promoted to a manager, dismissed, hired back three weeks later, and then forced to make a decision to get out of there as soon as possible. No heating in the rooms, gas leaks, water dripping from the ceiling, insults thrown at guests by the guy who run the place, are just some of the attractions that have discouraged me.
That’s how my plans for a little bit of stabilization have fallen apart, and although there were plenty of job ads, the idea of starting again from scratch seemed to overwhelm me this time.
So I packed my backpack and decided to go inland of France to visit friends and wait for the best solution to materialize itself, as it often did in the past. That is how my optimist’s nature works.
My short trip took me to Montpellier. One morning, while walking down the road to get some groceries, I realized that I was passing by the park … where it all started …! Nine years ago I went abroad for longer for the first time. Back then I worked as an au pair, and it was in a nearby park were I spent much time playing with the kids I was taking care of. At this moment I realized what a big circle I have made. At the age of almost-nearly-just about thirty I came to reflect a little bit on the path I have walked so far and the person that I have become within the last years.
I dared to feel proud of myself at that moment and although in the material life one can get the impression that I have not moved forward, I have not climbed to the top of my professional career, I do not have a car but a mopped. However, the inner transformation, and changes of mind and soul nature, have clearly made me a completely different person and made me grow. Everything that I have experienced over the last years have changed me into a different human being, at the same time changing the quality of life and the way I live it. I have never felt safer on my emotional ground and It feels like the negative mindsets that we all sometimes experience, cannot harm me or break me, at least not at the given moment.
You can like it or not but our lives are in our own hands and each experience is a lesson and can turn us even slightly into a better human being if we react properly and do not let our emotions take over.
And so I also think that for what we call a professional career, for the first million dollars and stable life it is never too late. The most important is that we follow our own, personal path, and learn to see the signs that point us the right direction, only then we learn that actually we cannot take a wrong turn, but only a path less travelled.
PS. The next job in France found me on its own, of course.
Soon some more info about getting a job in the French Alps.
Meanwhile, greetings from Norway.