Life lessons grace à expating in a COVID-19, Trump-to-Biden era

I arrived in France a few months shy of a year and a half ago. September 17, 2019. A Tuesday. A day remembered and measured, for the most part, by “ befores.” Three months before the historic transit strikes (followed closely by the unlucky & untimely occurrence of a stress fracture in my right foot). Four months (roughly) before the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Europe, and five months before the near-three-month nationwide lockdown in France that followed. Seven months before losing my job with my long-time NYC-based employer. Nine months before I found myself setting up the terrace of a restaurant & wine bar in the 11th, starting my first-ever shift as a waitress. Ten months before the unexpected passing of my grandmother. And - neither last nor least, but to keep these “befores” to a minimum: a year and a few weeks before November 3rd.

Not long after my arrival in France, I started to feel one giant stepped removed - detached, if you will - from things that were happening or that might happen back in the U.S. (health of my friends and family excluded, of course). And thus November 3rd began its slow fade into the background of my mind. Occasionally, I would find myself in a conversation with a non-American who, despite repeat attempts at a rapid change of subject, insisted on discussing how the people of the United States could have elected someone like Trump to be our Head of State, and into the spotlight the election would enter. In response, I only ever offered a “je ne sais pas” (I don’t know!) and a half-joking “ça, c’est pourqoui je suis là! » (this is why I’m here!), wishing that my American accent were less recognizable. I felt a bit like I had to be the voice of a nation for my neighborhood, and among patrons of various shops, bars, and restaurants I’d visit, and I did not enjoy it. Yes, Trump was our president. He was an idiot. It was embarrassing. But we’d get him out in 2020. Or would we?

The pandemic hitting a mere five months into my being abroad was quite the shock to the system. My entire being became blanketed in a layer of stress unlike any I’d ever experienced before; it was so thick it could not be sweated out, slept-off, or remedied by any other means. Homesickness, something that had not before been an issue, was suddenly rearing its head incessantly. My body ached with a longing to see my family and friends back home, and I wondered in sadness how long it might be before I could safely travel to see them. Also - like most everyone at that time, I think - I was scared, as so little was known about the virus back then. Things intensified in March as France entered into its first lockdown. While I was no longer able to leave my residence (a friend’s house in a town just south of Paris, at the time) without proof of ID and an attestation stating my reason for leaving, America was still of the mindset that COVID-19 was a problem of the rest of the world, and not of its own. Mask wearing and social distancing were - quite literally - still very much foreign terms, and would be for some time. My life of being allowed one « leisure » walk per day (within a 1km radius and for a maximum duration of an hour) was in complete juxtaposition of that of my friends and family back home, and it was a hard thing to wrap my head around.

As November inched closer and things with the pandemic grew worse in the world over, the outcome of the election became an unknown that I was able to manage less and less. After a summer that saw life returning to a very close version of pre-pandemic « normal » in France - the end of our strict lockdown in the spring having lead to the re-opening of bars, restaurants, gyms, and stores alike - the fall brought with it a harsh return to reality. France eased its fortress-tight border restrictions just as colder temperatures arrived and, suddenly, all of the freedoms and liberties that had been reintroduced in the few months prior were gone. My mental state entered to rocky territory. Keeping my day-to-day « balance » required a focused one-step-forward state of mind, which in turn demanded keeping a certain level of hope and optimism for the months to come. There was no space for thoughts of things not getting better. And when my thoughts drifted to the election, I couldn’t imagine a Biden victory without immediately imagining the opposite, no matter how hard I tried to keep the thought from my mind; so after sending in my absentee ballot, I decided that November 3rd would be a day that no longer existed for me. I feared that if I let it continue to exist, my mind would become overtaken by it, and I couldn’t let myself get aboard the « hope train » for a Biden victory only to be devastated by a second term of Trump. I felt it would destroy everything I’d been constructing in terms of balance and mental health.

Sure, I’d talked about possibly living live in France permanently, but that would be a choice I made, for myself, for reasons of my own - not because I was seeking refuge from a country where I truly felt I could no longer live due to a quality of life that had hit rockbottom and an absence of essential rights. There was no telling how much more havoc Trump could wreck if he got another four years in the White House. I remember meeting my friend Johanna, a fellow expat, for a walk in early September with plans to inform her of my ban on all-things election only to discover that there was no need to mention it at all; while election talk had trickled into some of our conversations in prior months, it was absent this time. We had arrived at the same decision, and it was a realization we didn’t even need to discuss. When the same silent understanding presented itself twice more with two other expat friends, I breathed yet two more tremendous sighs of relief.

Along comes the 4th of November. It’s 10AM, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m connecting my VPN to a U.S. server and tuning into NBC’s live coverage of the election results. « Out of sight, out of mind » no longer. As I tune in, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever been awake early enough to watch the first of the numbers being reported; so, fighting the urge to shut my laptop, I keep watching. I see that things are “so far, so good” for Biden, and suddenly, a spark of hope is ignited - and then set ablaze. My body is alive - electrified - with hope. It’s a precarious state, and I don’t like it one bit.

I message Johanna and am relieved to find that we are in the same boat. It’s not only the election that has our hearts and minds racing, but months of suppressed thoughts and emotions that are finally being released. All of the things for which focusing on a defined or specific outcome had been deemed too risky were now coming out of airplane mode, suddenly seeming possible. If Biden won, it would mean that America was on the road to being great again, and that our lives could be, too.

In the days that followed the election, as the reality set in that Biden’s defeat of Trump was less sure and would take days to be officially called, I was a nervous wreck. Worry set in that I would regret having let hope for the election take power in my mind, and for having allocated large chunks of it to other things that were previously ignored. My spirits went up and down, and my anxiety was at an all-time high. I avoided conversing with any French person at all costs, fearing even the slightest bit of election chatter. When I came home from a long wandering walk the evening of the 7th, I found my roommate on the couch in our living room watching the news. She looked over at me excitedly; I must be so happy and relieved, she said. Biden had been reported the winner about thirty minutes ago. I burst into tears.

When I decided to move to France back in 2018, I knew that I would have to get really comfortable undertaking certain risks. Known and unknown, acknowledged and unspoken, numerous they were. Some, I was able to plan for, to a certain degree - or I was able to imagine how I might react if certain things were to occur, at the very least. Having to speak a language daily that isn’t my native tongue; having to make new friends and build a new social circle from the ground up; having to navigate the hurdles of visa renewal and other administrative issues of a foreign government; adjusting to cultural differences; adapting to a new business culture (if I should be so lucky to find myself in that situation). These are all things I imagined and was able to see myself overcoming. Imagining how I might survive a pandemic abroad - during my first year of expatriotism, no less - was not. It is an intangible, unimaginable scenario that exists so far outside the realm of reality that I don’t think I could have imagined myself experiencing it if someone had asked me to.

To say that being aboard while COVID has ravaged the world has been a difficult experience is like saying a pain au chocolate from Benoît Castel is good. It is a profound understatement. And though my « stress blanket » has thinned noticeably, it is still there, and I often find myself having to reconcile the opposing emotions of being so happy with my life here in Paris, yet so sad to be so far away from my family. This leads me to question (more often than I’d like) my decision to stay abroad instead of going home, and to revisit my long-term goals of my life in France. I always arrive back at the same place, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the journey.

Biden’s victory was a tremendous victory of hope - of good - for 2020. It is something that has grounded and re-centered me many times over these last few months, something that I turned to in many stressful or difficult moments. Whenever I found myself thinking that something might not be possible, or that something might take a turn for the worst, I thought of who would be sitting in the White House come January 20th, and my answers to those thoughts would then become: yes it is, and no it won’t. It is even something that played a factor in making the decision to travel home to be with my family over the holidays. As silly as it may sound, thinking of his victory gave me a weird sense of comfort and ease when I imagined myself taking that intercontinental flight, something that had before been incredibly anxiety-inducing and almost completely out of mind as something I could do.

The image of Biden at our head even carried me through on January 5th, as I am sure it did for many Americans, whether abroad or stateside. The day was the biggest test yet of America being on the road to greatness. But hope and optimism for a better, brighter and kinder tomorrow and a future full of possibilities emerged victorious. A successful, peaceful transition of power has taken place. Joe and Kamala - they’re there, and they’re making moves.

In the three weeks since the inauguration, I have found myself feeling almost ashamed of my forced detachment from the election. This is made worse by the fact that I have been congratulated more times than I can count in the past two weeks by French person after French person for our new president having finally taken office; it is a new era, they say, a return of the power of the great États-Unis! How could I have doubted, or, at the very least, been afraid to allow myself to have hope for that?

Biden said in his moving inaugural address that « America has been tested, and come out stronger for it. » And boy, have we. It has been a long, hard, challenging past four years - and that fourth year, man, what a you-know-what. While much of what America has had to endure and overcome over the last year are experiences unique to our nation, it can be said that most were felt by people in the world over, carried by the undercurrent of the pandemic. COVID has brought many things to light, expected and unexpected, and has put everyone, everywhere, on trial. We have all been tested, pushed beyond our furthest breaking points, time and time and time again. And the simple fact that we stand here today (or whatever day), reflecting back on it all, means that we are standing stronger than before.

My decision to pretend that the election was an event that did not exist has taught me a big lesson. France has spent the better part of a year on lockdown, or under strict curfews and restrictions, a status quo to be maintained as we continue with our current 18h curfew and may soon enter into lockdown #3. During this time, I’ve had to overcome challenge after challenge after challenge - and even though the urge to was so strong at times, I never gave up. When I lost my job back in April, I had a breakdown (it was short-lived, thankfully, but a breakdown nonetheless) — and, faced with the harsh reality of not being able to collect benefits from abroad, I had a decision to make: to stay or go. I stayed. Jobless, this meant I was now propelling myself into the mid-pandemic job market in France, and as a foreigner with a visa status that imposes work limitations, it was not a pretty scene. Next month’s rent beckoned. Thanks to some grit and a bit of luck, I landed my waitress job about a month later, and that carried me through to the fall, when the restaurant was forced to close in the wake of the second lockdown. Now, I am paying my rent with a job that gave me « pocket change money » in high school while I look for a longer-term solution — I find it a little funny, and a lot humbling; I’m doing what I have to do, and there is no shame in it. It, like most things in life, is temporary.

I’ll spare you the details of some of the other roadblocks and hurdles that I’ve had to maneuver and jump over and just say that my life abroad has been hard with a Capital H. But in thinking back on the past almost-year, I realize that life has also been great. I’ve improved my French immensely; strengthened relationships here and back home; and celebrated my birthday in one of the most beautiful cities of France, spending relaxed afternoons by the Mediterranean Sea, just to name a few things. And, what’s more, in dealing with all of the « hard, » I have learned so much about myself and changed in such profound ways that I’d hardly recognize the pre-pandemic Liz if I met her out on a grocery run. I’ve gotten rid of some bad habits & developed some great new ones; refocused my career goals; redefined what I want out of life and how to get it. And I really proved to myself that France is where I want to be - that I made the right decision in coming here; because if my life here can make me smile even just a little bit on my hardest of days now, when we are still in the midst of a pandemic, the possibilities of post-pandemic happiness and smiles are endless. I can’t imagine what all is to come, in the best of ways.

So why was it that I felt that the election was something I had to box away, when dealing with everything else that was going on was something I was able to manage? I think the answer is pretty simple. I think many of us doubt our ability to handle things that are tough or challenging, despite any evidence that might exist to the contrary, and there is that one thing that, for whatever reason, we are certain will absolutely take us down. And so we cope by ignoring or avoiding it. In a time when suddenly everything was more unknown and unsure than ever before and you just had to hope for the best, the election, having such a huge possibility of a negative outcome, was my one thing. And my placing it outside of my reality worked until it didn’t. Luckily, the outcome was not what I feared, but I should have faced up to it in the months leading up nonetheless. None of us knows the future - there is just as much chance of a thing going our way as it going against us— and, as we’ve previously established, we are all stronger than we think; so, why not let everything be « in play » in our lives and place our bets on things working out as we want (no matter how big the stakes), taking comfort in the knowledge that we can handle even the worst of outcomes? Trump could have won - he didn’t. Hate and violence could have won - they didn’t. 2021 might be a hard year - but it’s probably also going to be pretty great. I’m putting my bets on me, on Biden, and on everyone else, too, in making that happen.