Having to stand up for myself in a country where I’m trying to establish the rest of my life has been no easy feat.
A thin layer of perspiration has formed and now permanently coats my face simply because I’m trying to work up the nerve to ask a follow-up question.
Standing up for myself takes everything out of me. It takes all my guts.
And yet, I still decide to get up every morning and do it again. And again. And again.
When I’m lying on my bed at night, thinking about what little ground I’ve covered, yet how much energy I’ve used to defend my honor, I’m struck, asking myself the question: When does one learn to do this? When does one learn how to stand up for themselves? Because I think I might’ve missed the memo.
As children, it’s our parents’ job to be our biggest advocate. Defend our rights. Speak to our needs.
During adolescence, we often wade in a state of constant humiliation, so much so that it feels like we’re drowning in it. We’re barely hanging on. Dogging-paddling to stay afloat. We couldn’t care less about fighting for our rights, what we deserve, we’re living day-by-day and our friends are our safety floats.
Then one day we wake up and come to the jarring realization that we’re the adults now. It seems as if we’ve just been living as passerbys to our own lives until suddenly we’re thrown into the wild, taught to fight it out, and see if we come out alive.
In adulthood we’re confronted with the desire to carve out a life of our own. And if you want to do that — to make your own life — it means getting used to confrontation and passive-aggressive responses and learning to be your biggest protector.
When I moved to Paris in my early twenties, my question changed in accordance with my new context. Having to deal with bureaucracy, confrontations on the street, and landlords all in a foreign language on a foreign land, I wondered, “But who stands up for us?” I felt that someone should.
Sticking up for myself within a new identity became an even bigger challenge, yet increasingly vital.
Initially, I relied on handling administrative tasks in a group effort, surrounded by my closest expat friends. This way, if we worked together, chainlinked our arms around one another’s, no one could take us down.
One thing led to another and the group eventually did collapse.
Someone would ask for a raincheck the day we planned to meet up and check things off our to-do lists, so we’d take it as a sign to put our tasks off for another week. Another would fill our souls with hope by promising to look into something for the group and relay their findings. In the end, they’d never get around to it.
Relying on others to help cushion the embarrassment by being there with you when you fall from grace is undeniably nice, but it also tends to be a huge waste of time.
I even tried relying on my boyfriend for this sort of support, telling myself that once he got home from work he would sit by my side and help me as I called CAF. When he would come home, we’d make dinner while listening to music or turn on the TV in the guise of just wanting to watch the news for a few minutes, then like magic, a movie would switch on and we’d get sucked in.
We always told each other tomorrow. Tomorrow is when we’ll spend countless hours on hold together.
The thing is, time moves slowly when you’re always waiting on others.
I watched as people made their own lives around me. Big things were happening to people. Law school. Jobs in fields that nourished them and some that even paid them well. Marriage. An evolving social status.
It felt like nothing was happening to me. People were moving around me, things were moving around me, but I wasn’t. I was stuck in the middle of a whirlwind.
I was with one of my expat friends at the Musée de l’Orangerie, wandering around the Berthe Weill exhibit and reading about her legacy and the kind of life she led in Paris. I remember feeling low at the time. Bad news kept toppling onto my lap. Yet again, I was passing nights lying on my bed, questioning everything. The central one being: why am I here? Every bright light at the end of the tunnel seemed to be misleading. Caveats adorned everything I pursued, ultimately preventing me from simply living in the city where I wished to be. I couldn’t feel any relief. But then I saw this quote plastered above some of Weill’s collection and a smile couldn’t help but creep upon my face. My stomach felt warm. My giddiness started to rise.
“I started out with just 50 francs in hand and went into debt to pay the costs involved in opening a shop. Obviously, the situation wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t back out now. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? Not being able to hang on? I WILL HANG ON!” – Berthe Weill
Be brave. Do the thing. Bear the challenge. If anything, it won’t wear you down; you’ll wear it.
In the end, I sucked it up. I put on my big girl pants, and I learned how to fight for my life and how to find pride in saying that I made it my own. Learning to stick up for yourself in a “ce n’est pas possible” culture is not my kind of fun. In fact, I used to take offense to it. With nearly every interaction, I have to fight for what I want. As an American, having arguments, even little ones, doesn’t just brush off my back. I don’t call that an interaction. I call that a dispute, and it makes me feel icky. They stick with me. I feel ashamed, or if I’m lucky, I learn to think of the other person as evil.
Here, it’s almost like a game. Oh, you want something? You’re gonna have to beg me for it.
I now treat it as such. Once I crack the code and win the game, receiving what is rightfully mine, I become overjoyed. It’s made the reward feel even better. It’s turned it into a testament to my wit, my charm, my insatiable persistence.
Still, I find it demanding to stick up for myself and fight for what is rightfully mine, but I’m happy to say that I try to take it less seriously these days. Laughing more about it helps. What do you mean it’s not possible to do something that is very clearly possible?
In doing the hard work, I’ve felt a strange conglomeration of feelings: being absolutely on my own, yet feeling powerful because of it. I’ve learned, reluctantly, that I can’t wait and sit back and watch how my other expat friends have done it or wait till my French boyfriend can help me.
If I want things to happen for myself, I need to make them happen. And in the meantime, regardless of what will happen with my life, I WILL HANG ON!
Photo by Diogo Fagundes on Unsplash
Did you enjoy this article? TAIP is 100% reader-supported through tipping. If you want to leave us a tip of any amount it would be highly appreciated. These tips help support our efforts to keep TAIP an ad-free environment. Just like at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.