Both Sides of the Pond

I am not sure what to title this post. "Hello Again?" Maybe, maybe not. It has been a long time. A fact that has not been lost on my father, or some new FB friends who were curious about my blog. It hasn't been for a lack of stories. With two kids who could possibly have a lack of stories?! It has been more of a lack of interest. Totally on my part. I keep thinking that no one will want to hear about that, whatever that is.

Hopefully I am wrong. Hopefully there are still a few folks out there who are interested in what is going on in our tiny corner of the U.S.

Today I had an interesting conversation with a friend who was an expatriate in France when I was. Our daughters attend the same school, and have the same two teachers. One of those teachers is a wonderful French lady who is from the same town where our husbands worked. It was one of those conversations where the people involved reminisce about shared experiences. Ours started with the French teacher, moved into a discussion about the pace of life in both countries, and ended with a soul searching conversation about where we like it better.

My friend asked me if I thought the pace of life in France was really slower or did it just seem that way to us because we were not French therefore did not get as involved in life as the French.

Wow ... I always thought that life just moved at a slower pace. Now I am not so sure. Now that we are back on our home soil, we are involved in all kinds of activities that take up lots of lots of time. There are sports and dance lessons, library visits, playdates, and so much more.

Did we miss out on those things while in France because we didn't know how to get involved? Were our lives less stressful because we didn't know how to get our children into 50 different activities? Or was it really a slower, less-stressful life?

Maybe I am remembering things through rose-colored glasses, but I think life really was slower paced. The kids had their activities on Wednesdays when they did not have school. We spent lots of time together as a family on the weekends. We relaxed more, all of us.

I have been asked if I would go back to France more times than I can count. My answer is always YES! We had a good life. I would miss a lot of things from the US, but I did it once and I could do it again.

Until that day hopefully comes (which is NOWHERE in the future according to my hubby), I need to figure out how to make my life in the US a little more French! I think I'll start working on that by opening a bottle of wine. Ciao!