Before I moved to France in 2011, my life looked very different to the one I have today. I spent most of my teens, twenties and early thirties working in various admin and support roles, moving between towns and organisations whenever life nudged me in a new direction. I was always capable, always dependable, always the person who kept things running in the background.
My last role in the UK was at a university, supporting the postgraduate psychotherapy and mental health programmes. It was busy, layered and full of interesting people. With my mum and stepdad both being ex-psychotherapists, I suppose understanding people has always been part of the fabric of my life.
In 2011 I took voluntary redundancy. It came with a year’s salary and arrived at exactly the moment I needed a change. I had been carrying a lot, both professionally and personally, and stepping away felt like a release I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.
My personal life in the UK was a mixture of independence and relationships that didn’t quite settle. I lived alone for long stretches, and although most of my relationships were shorter, there were two longer ones along the way. One lasted six years and shaped a lot of my teens and twenties. The other was around two years and included an engagement, although neither lead to marriage or children. Looking back, each chapter taught me something different about myself and what I needed.
There were difficult periods too. In 2007 I went bankrupt a good few years after the end of that long six-year relationship which left me with a heavy amount of debt. It was hard, but it was also strangely grounding. It forced me to rebuild, re-organise and take control in a way I hadn’t had to before.
Then in 2010, a year before leaving the UK, I crossed paths with a serial con artist. Thankfully he didn’t manage to take much, but the experience was unsettling and taught me to trust my intuition even more closely.
All of this sits behind the decision to move to France. I didn’t know exactly what life would look like here. I simply knew I wanted something quieter, steadier and more honest than the pace I had been living. I wanted space to rebuild on my own terms and to breathe again.
I’m not sharing any of this as a dramatic reveal. These are simply the threads that shaped the person I was before finding this slower, more intentional way of living. The steps that, in their own way, carried me towards the quiet I have now.
It feels good to finally put some of it into words.