A Year of Living in France - 3 stories, 6 months apart

Living in a new country is a kind of progression & there are days that definitely feel like a step back, but that’s a part of the progress…

These three pieces were written six months apart.

1. March last year
2. September.
3. Then this March.

I wasn’t planning it, but reading them back now, it’s hard not to see the pattern—like checking in with the same question.

Same life. Same country.

Just… further in.

Bref: I’ve been talking to a lot of people about moving lately, which has me rereading three pieces I wrote over the last year about relocating to France—not the fantasy, not even decisions, but the long middle after. These 3 work as a progression: first the novelty wears off, then you realize you brought yourself with you, then you start asking what “home” even means now.

A lot changes in a year.

Writing about relocation in real time is tricky.

You can understand something in your head long before you feel comfortable with it. Then some paperwork, some inspection, some administrative absurdity drags the whole lesson back into the room and sits it down in front of you.

It’s a whole new learning. The lessons just keep coming.

Not the move. The part after.

I write about what that actually feels like, while it’s happening. Subscribe if you want more of a sense of what you’re in for.

Its good. It’s great.

But not all of it’s great.

“Moving abroad doesn’t end when you unpack. It just changes form.”

1. What you brought

Then there’s The Art of Moving (And Staying) Abroad. This one sits a little deeper in the process. It’s less about arrival and more about what follows—bureaucracy, housing, language, the low-grade exhaustion of functioning inside a system you don’t fully understand.

The Art of Moving (And Staying) Abroad

Adjusting to life in a new country doesn’t end once you’ve unpacked and settled in—it’s an ongoing process of adaptation, surprises, and the occasional bureaucratic headache. As the novelty fades, the real challenge begins: learning how to function within a different system, navigating cultural nuances, and figuring out what still feels foreign (and what, strangely, no longer does). Whether you're planning a move or already abroad, here’s what happens after you start to get used to it.

We Live Here NowKeith Christiansen

That’s the phase where it starts to dawn on you that the move didn’t wipe the slate clean, reset the board, start over at the beginning of the level, but now you know how to fight the big boss.

You are still very much there. Your habits are there. Your assumptions. Blind spot, etc., all there with you.

2. Living into it

“Fluency and home aren’t things you wait for — you live your way into them.”

Stumbling Toward Home in France is where housing and language start to feel like the same problem—you can function in both, but neither quite feels like yours. Not yet.

It’s less about figuring things out, more about realizing there’s no set moment where you’re “ready.”

And meanwhile, life just… keeps moving.

At some point, you stop waiting.

Or you don’t. But either way, you’re already in it.

Stumbling Toward Home in France

Three years into France, I keep circling the same problem: housing and language both remind me that home doesn’t come once you’re “ready.” You live into it, whether you like it or not.

We Live Here NowKeith Christiansen

3. After that

And then You Don’t Start Over When You Move Abroad. This is probably the clearest version of what I’ve been circling for a while now: you do not become a new person just because you changed countries. You bring your whole self with you, and then the place starts pressing back on that self in ways you didn’t expect.

That piece is the furthest along in the progression. Less “what is happening?” and more “what is this doing to me?” Not dramatic, exactly. Just quieter. More permanent. The long work of becoming legible to yourself again in a different place.

You Don’t Start Over When You Move Abroad

Most people think leaving is the hard part.

We Live Here NowKeith Christiansen

Comments?

I write about this kind of thing a lot here—living in France after the novelty wears off, bureaucracy, food, language, regional life, and the small disorientations that end up mattering more than they should.

If you want more, the Leaving the US section is the best spot.

And if you’ve been through your own version of this—abroad or just elsewhere—I’d love to hear which part hit hardest: the leaving, the staying, or the moment you realized you hadn’t actually started over at all.