Everything Is Cyclical

Edinburgh, August 2018. My last day in Europe for the foreseeable future (again)

Five years ago, at summer’s end, I wrote this post.

I wrote about the funny twists life can take — how it can throw you in for a spin cycle and leave you tumbling out in a place you never, in your strangest Ambien-induced dreams, would have expected.

I wrote about love, and heartache, and friendships, both lost and found.

***

Five years ago, I spent the summer buoyed by cloud-nine highs while simultaneously being dragged to painfully despairing lows.

I struggled with the fallouts of a romantic breakup (that I initiated) and a platonic one (that I did not). I’d accepted a job opportunity that was meant to be a huge step for my career, and was preparing to move to a new country for the role.

Most profoundly, I found myself leaving Paris: a city I’d grown to not only adore over a year and a half, but truly consider home. I genuinely thought it was the end of the line for France and me, so I said my goodbyes accordingly and braced for whatever came next.

I never expected, half a decade later, to still be there.

Paris, July 2018. The night France won the World Cup

This summer, I once again savored warm evenings in Paris and Barcelona and London and a smattering of other European cities, just as in 2013, while barreling towards August’s end in a similar state of affairs.

Same same, but different.

• Funemployment tinged with anxiety over The Future? Check.
• An unexpected job offer? Check.
• …that requires moving & starting over in a brand new city? Check.
• Romantic entanglements? Girl, so many checks on that I coulda made Checks Mix.
• And a best friend who suddenly ghosts, cutting off all contact in the midst of when you need them most? A most heart-wrenching check.

That last one was by far the worst: the abrupt severance in early July of one of my closest friendships was actually more painful than the combination of both breakups the first time around. Cue that Daft Punk song on repeat, again.

And briefly I despaired, for the friends comforting me and helping me get through it all at 29 were the same as at 24 — yet they were now doing so as we sat in the dining room of the new apartment they had purchased; as they showed me wedding and anniversary photos; as they took breaks to check on their napping toddler.

The message seemed obvious: everyone else was moving forward. I clearly wasn’t.

Was I stuck in some maturity time warp? Looped into a Groundhog Day-esque illusion that I was making progress? My friends were over here making mini humans while the only 18-month-old in my life was my latest suitcase.

What did I have to show for my years of experiences as A Traveler if all I did in the end was fly in one big circle, making continuous left turns until I arrived right back where I started — confused, alone, and chasing ghosts in Paris?

Thankfully, with déjà vu comes comfort: as much as the uncertainty sucked, this time I knew it’d be temporary.

The thing about experience is, it makes the new challenges feel less…challenging. The tough times, less all-consuming. It gives you a greater sense of self and optimism that everything eventually shakes out.

It’s easier to endure that slog through the mud when you know what’s waiting on the other side.

And sure enough, when the dust settled, this fall I found myself in a place I never would have expected — mentally, professionally, and quite literally (more on that soon).

Where I really ended up, though, is happy. There’s far less travel in my life at the moment, and I still don’t know what the future holds after my new latest stint, but I’m as content and fulfilled as ever. Everything comes full circle, in the end.