Zoom Out

The last time I wrote, I showed you a “before I worked on my brain photo.”

The message of that blog was to check in with those eyes, they tell a stronger story than almost anything when you’re suffering.

When I went to my basement box to find that picture, because yes it pre-dates digital pics :), 

I found myself in a sea of photos from my time living in France. 

I moved there just after college to teach English. The program was for a year but I was fairly certain (in my fog of a brain at the time) that THIS was going to be it for me, that I’d love reinventing myself and finding a new life in France. And that I might even decide to live there.

I moved to France a week before my program started when I would be introduced to other teachers. I moved there alone, I booked a zero-star hotel to stay in while I searched for a more permanent home. The only person I’d been in contact with was a teacher at one of the schools I was to teach at. She was my liaison and had promised to pick me up from the airport and help get me settled. The night before I left for France (that just happened to be 4 days after 9/11, the first day international flights were allowed again) I got an email from my liaison saying she wouldn’t be able pick me up and that I should take a taxi. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this.”

The flights went ok from what I can remember, I got a taxi, and the taxi proceeded to take me to the wrong hotel. (A much fancier place than I could afford to stay in.) So I stood there with my luggage, a meager hold on the French language, and still enough enthusiasm and energy to ask around to find and then proceed to WALK with one year’s worth of luggage to my actual hotel. I got there, was greeted warmly, and pointed to the stairs – no elevator. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this,” as I climbed several flights of stairs with that aforementioned luggage.

The first week in France my liaison emailed me with some recommendations on where to go to find housing and to get groceries, and that was it, I didn’t hear from her again. I went to housing assistance and quickly learned there was no way in “H E double hockey sticks” I was going to afford living on my own in Nice, France (the equivalent to living in California in the States).

I was working 12 hours a week on a teaching assistant salary and not able to get another job on my Visa. I was making even less than I thought I would because as chance would have it, this was also the time when France was transitioning from the Franc to the Euro, and my meager salary sounded like a whole lot more in Francs. I got some financial help from my parents, but nowhere near enough to live in an apartment alone. So, I had to just wait out my time until I met the other teaching assistants and could hopefully find a roommate or two. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this.”

I spent the next few days literally wandering around aimlessly in Nice. I would get up every morning, force myself to leave the hotel, and just walk. I walked for miles and miles, saw all I could see, visited grocery stores alone, shops alone, and ate every meal alone. I forced myself to eat out as much as I could handle alone.

My brain had always told me the key to happiness would be found here. All this alone time, reinventing myself, becoming whoever it was I was certain I was meant to be.

Then…I had some unfortunate run-ins with some shady characters, those meals became lonelier and lonelier, I got more and more tired of encountering the daily cockroaches in my hotel bathroom. Not everyone in Nice was sympathetic of 9/11, so much so that there was one day it was suggested Americans don’t go outside.

And then I realized, no one back home even knew the name of the hotel I was staying at, if I disappeared, it would be a long time before anyone would’ve even noticed. “Ok,” I thought, “I CAN’T do this.”

I called my mom bawling, certain I would disappear at any moment and that would be that. “Could you at least write down the name of the hotel I’m staying at?” I pleaded tearfully. My mom talked me down from the ledge as she so often did to soften my hyper-achieving, painfully perfectionist mind (common symptoms of depression), and I got through that first week.

I met the other teaching assistants who were mostly British. And after a bit of time convincing them that I was a normal person and not like the Americans they see on Married with Children and Baywatch, I found a roommate and a bunch of other wonderful teaching assistant friends.

My dad used to always ask me if I missed my family when I went somewhere (I had gone abroad during school a couple times before) and I’d sheepishly say “yes.” He would say, “No you don’t, (which was half true) because you quickly build another family wherever you go.” THAT was very much true. Even through some of the darkest, deepest depression periods of my life (of which this France trip was one), I always found my people, and oftentimes would find a mother figure to go along with them. I found fierce love for my makeshift families all throughout college, my times abroad, and at pretty much every stage of my life.

Did those families travel with me on this journey toward a balanced life? Some did, most didn’t. Many ended up in very different life stages or on very different paths than me. And that’s ok, they were still an immense and supportive part of my life (and I hope I was in theirs too).



So let’s zoom out on that picture I shared last time. You’ll quickly see, that although I might have been suffering through some of the worst depression of my life, I was still surrounded by a truly wonderful, beautiful group of ragtag 20-something teaching assistants that became my fiercely supportive family.

I had many beautiful, richly satisfying experiences abroad with this family as we learned how to navigate living in a foreign country and traveling as much as we could on our teacher salaries.

I had so many family and friends visit me also, and we too had so many amazing, enriching experiences that only a trip abroad can offer.

(Not to mention the food, oh the food we enjoyed as I happily took advantage of being able to eat big beautiful prix fixe restaurant meals every time someone would come visit…and pay for them. :)) There was so much good that came from my trip to France, so many memories created not only for myself but for those I loved both from home and abroad. I wouldn’t change my experience there for anything. I have an entire box full of pictures to prove it.

AND I was deeply suffering through some really dark depression during that time (which being alone only exacerbated).

I drank to black out more than I ever have in my life. I dealt with some really dark situations and some really scary nights. There were some situations I am proud I came out of alive.

So this story is a very long-winded lesson in the power of the AND. 

You can be deep in your suffering through your mental health journey AND you can still accomplish some pretty amazing, beautiful and brave things.

You can be in the thick of suffering, and still cherish many moments where your heart sings. You can feel deeply alone, and still build a community of people who you care about more than anything, and they can care about you too. The AND makes it possible for people like me to live with high-functioning depression. The AND reminds you, that you CAN come out on the other side of this.

So when you are in the throws of suffering, see if you can zoom out for a minute. 

There may be times when this is too challenging or feels next to impossible. I get that, and I see you. But the times when it does feel ok, zoom out of the dark for a moment.

Become the observer of the life that’s happening around you, the life that is happening for you, and the life you have built, co-created. You will likely find some glorious beauty there as you sit with the knowledge that both light and dark can and do exist simultaneously.

Zoom out, my darling reader, always zoom out. And you may just find, while there is work left to do, it is surrounded by so, so much to be grateful for. 💗

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