Blergh. Every time I sit down to write over the past few weeks, I get partway through the post, run out of steam, and save the draft for another time. It’s not that I’m picking topics I don’t want to write about–they’re just not on the top of my mind right now. And with everything else happening at the moment, I seem only capable of writing about what I’m currently mulling over.
So I’ll do that, I guess!
At the moment I’m having a bit of a love affair with Substack, which feels like social media for nerdy and navel-gazing people (that’s me). I don’t like that they recently added reels–I quit Instagram for a reason–but I do love the longform content. It’s the closest thing to a revival of personal blogging that’s out there at the moment.
Lately I’ve stumbled across a few articles reflecting on traveling in Europe, moving abroad, and/or trying to bring the sense of an unhurried life back home to the US. I’ll link them below because I think they are worth reading for anyone like myself who had/has expat ambitions (or maybe is just generally a Europhile):
- I thought I was failing at homemaking–then I went to Italy
- We tried living like Europeans in the U.S.
- Goodbye, USA. Hello, Europe. Was it worth it?
The authors come to different conclusions for their own lives. To move, to stay, to change their lives where they are. But they all capture the essence of life in Europe from an American perspective–an intangible difference in the quality and sense of life’s purpose overseas that I’ve struggled to put into words. (I might expand my own collection of countries to include Australia, as well.)
And there’s truth to the sentiment that Fiona Ferris voices repeatedly in her books, that her/most people’s idea of France–or any European country–and what it would be like to live there is not grounded in reality. She acknowledges that her utopian image is not an objectively accurate depiction of France, and it also serves an important purpose: to inspire her to live a slower, happier, more creative life.
I depend on that inspiration in my own life, too, while recognizing that life in Scandinavia (among other places) is not just eating good bread and fish and frolicking in the woods outside your little red-painted cottage! The utopian mental image is valuable… as long as you don’t expect it IRL when you visit or move there.
Yet there is a limit to the how much you can change your lifestyle in the US, especially without isolating yourself, as the second link points out. You can’t use public transit that doesn’t exist. You can’t visit local markets regularly if they’re a 20-minute drive away and open only a few months out of the year. You can’t use universal healthcare you don’t have. You can’t clock out after eight hours at work if everyone else works ten (without seriously risking your career).
I hold two pictures of life in Europe in my mind at the same time. The stress of trying to (ultimately unsuccessfully) trying to set up a life abroad in Oslo. And also the beauty of a life already settled–the dozens of people I’ve been fortunate to meet while traveling throughout my life, the ones I read about, the moments in Norway when I saw what could have been. The knowledge that nowhere is perfect, and the feeling that some components of a good life are non-negotiable. And that they are different for each person and family.
This post has no conclusion because I don’t have conclusions. We’re settled here for now, for better or for worse. And lately has been a lot of better. But as for the future… I’m open to the possibilities.
xx Claire