reflection

a field of purple flowers

On Living Two Lives

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I’ve heard of people going back home after living abroad for a while and feeling self-conscious, out of place. As if they can no longer relate to the people from their hometown. It’s isolating, I imagine, to feel disconnected from the people and the place that witnessed their formative years.

For me, going back home for the first time since expatriating was disorienting, but I had a different experience.

Stepping back onto the soil I knew so well — the smells of Texas, the long stretches of overpasses that led to shopping plazas or nothing at all, and that heat, my God, that heat — transported me back to my adolescence. 

This was the town I hit puberty in. The town where I first learned what it was to like someone so much it hurts. The town where I spent almost all my weekends at the age of fourteen at the roller rink. The same town that I knew like the back of my hand — I could still drive the same mindless routes to the superstores that my friends and I wandered around in when we had nothing better to do (and in the suburbs we almost never had anything better to do). 

This was the town that I hated, that I so badly wanted to flee from, the town I associated with boredom, ignorance, bigotry. I remember so vividly feeling like an alien on my home planet.

But also, it was the town that raised me. I thought I always knew there was life outside of Katy, Texas but I didn’t really get to experience it and truly understand everything that it encompassed until I left for a while.

When I came back home for the first time I was awoken, rather briskly, by the realization that there was this other person inside of me, one that walked with her chin held high and in a confident posture. I felt unafraid of the world. 

Because in Texas, I have no shame. These people don’t impress me. They don’t intimidate me. I know them for who they are — so easily placeable in a tight, little box. Film bro, sorority girl, liberal, conservative, someone who gets me, someone who doesn’t. 

I’m the funniest when I’m at home. The most reckless. I have no care in the world. I’m happy, I’m generous, I speak up for myself effortlessly. 

In Paris, another less familiar, less well-acquainted side comes out. I’m shy. My self-advocacy is easily thrown out the door. It’s something I have to think about. Put energy into. Relearn every day.

I’m drawn into myself. I’m self-conscious. I can come off as mean. I like to think it’s because I’m protecting myself, but really, it’s because of all my nerves and how scared I am. How hard it all is.

So at first, I was shocked and also liberated to come home and release this lighter, funnier, kinder version of myself into the spotlight again. I exhaled, so incredibly relieved. I am layered. I am complex. I am not this way, or that. No one can fit me in a box because I’ve moved away from that possibility of being stuck there for too long. 

And finally it all starts to make sense — I am nice, I am adventurous, I am brave — moving to Paris, becoming an expat has made me believe I was one way, it hardened me, convinced me I’d be like this forever, but my life here is just starting out. Of course I’m acting like this. Of course all I can think about are the differences between home and here. There’s still so much room for my life to change. 

I feel immensely fortunate to have been struck by this sense of duality. While I know fear and anxiety well, I also know assurance, confidence, comfortability. Not everyone gets to feel these things. I am so lucky to have two lives, one that can nourish the other while in pain. One that discovers something that helps revitalize the broken side of myself. Not everyone has this same experience being an expatriate and I will always count my lucky stars for this.

And I’m not saying I felt this ease and comfort right after I stepped off the eleven-hour plane ride. I remember initially wincing at the loudness of public spaces. The airport, coffee shops, malls. I’d cover my ears and buckle down — bracing myself for all that noise. It was the first time I truly recognized how loud Americans tended to be. 

But eventually I embraced it. I rejoiced in it. These are my people. My silly, ignorant, superficially sweet people. 

I learned to collect the noise, open my heart up to it, and embrace that cafe culture in America wasn’t just about working on your laptop. It was also about eavesdropping too.

I learned to feel completely and utterly at peace. Despite all the noise. Because while I know people can sometimes feel lost going back home, I felt revitalized.

Photo by Roberta Guillen on Unsplash

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people walking past paintings in the Louvre, Paris

You Have to Make Your Life

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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.

people walking in front of a restaurant at night in Paris

Paris is Still Just a City

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In my final year at university, amidst the chaos of final exams, graduation, and a future being all mine for choosing, moving to Paris was all I could really think about. I didn’t care about making a name for myself or carving out a place in the land of interns, waiting eagerly to climb the corporate ladder. All I cared about was getting out of Texas, seeing something new.

I dreamt of the days I studied abroad here, drinking absurdly cheap wine, eating fresh pastries, discounts at the cinema, free entries to museums. I dreamt of a life Paris had afforded me when I was younger. One that was reckless, one where I had no responsibility besides to fall in love with the city, new friends, even a cute boy. 

When I graduated, I remember the world seeming so big, and I felt so lucky to have all these possibilities laid out in front of me. I had a degree now, even though I could hardly remember how I got it, and I naively believed that things would continue just as smoothly for me as they had been, given my life thus far. So, I took the leap, did the big, courageous thing it was for a well-off girl like me to do, and I made the big move to Europe. 

I emerged from the metro at Place d’Italie on a busy Sunday afternoon, with a suitcase in my hand, and an overstuffed backpack hanging from my shoulders. Police sirens rushed past, pedestrians made way for themselves regardless of others, and there stood directly in my line of vision, a big, metallic, soulless shopping mall that was the point of reference for my new neighborhood. Some residents have the Eiffel Tower. I had Italie Deux. 

I looked down at my jean shorts and sneakers, then up at the Parisians sporting black slacks and light summer jackets. An elderly lady came up to me, asking for directions. For a while, I tried to help. I looked at where she wanted to go on my phone and attempted to explain directions in French. She appeared frustrated, not being able to understand me, and gave a look like I was wasting her time. She walked off and demanded the next stranger for help.

I was breathless after having dragged my suitcase up several flights of stairs to my new apartment. After having unlocked the door with my comically long skeleton key, I immediately sank to the wood-paneled floor. I sat there, looking up at the crown molding on the ceiling and felt completely happy. A wave of warmth rushed over me. This is what I wanted, I thought. Crown molding, how lucky am I? Sure, there was an unbelievable amount of dust and mold bordering the windows, and the previous tenants had left a bunch of clutter, but here I was finally in my new place in the city I’ve been dreaming about ever since I left.

Weeks passed and I put off essential errands that would make my life feel more real and viable here. I needed a bank account, a social security number, a phone number, WiFi. But I was scared. 

Hidden within my fear were my memories, and suddenly, they all came flooding back. My face felt hot. I suddenly remembered what I was so quick to forget: how humiliated I felt when I was studying here, trying to disguise my Americanness yet it was inescapable. How I was still incapable of mastering the language. How it felt like anxiety was always trailing me, hiding behind every corner ready to pop out and remind me that this was not my home, things work differently here, and they don’t really work for you. 

I broke out into a cold sweat. What was I doing? I came over signed to a nannying agency, meanwhile I had spent the majority of my life working with kids and after finally having a college degree, I was longing to do something else. What was I doing? I was wasting time while everybody was back home applying for jobs that they could actually get. 

My panic broke me. I applied to so many jobs and internships, all of which were hindered by the fact that I wasn’t yet bilingual, nor was I enrolled in higher education. I felt trapped. I felt trapped in this undeniably beautiful, bustling, and some might say, I know I sure did, magical city. 

I remember looking for signs to bring me back to America. A cop out. A scapegoat. I began applying to these outrageously prestigious Master’s programs in America whose acceptance rates were laughable and exclusively marketed for geniuses. I convinced myself into believing they were targeted at me. I told myself, if I get into one, then it’s destiny. Then I’m going home and never looking back. They need me. America needs me.

The advertisements that fluttered the walls in metro stations began speaking to me. Women and men, children and the elderly, all those whose faces were plastered on these posters, urged me, begged me to come back. “You’ll be safe there,” they teased. “Life will be easier. You’ll get a nice job, one that fulfills you.” I ran to catch the stalled train before the doors shut, wanting to give in but also not wanting to give up. Making that decision to move back home would feel like both.

The image I held in my head of my study abroad days no longer held up. The lights dwindled, the magic faded. Paris is beautiful, yes, but there’s a lot of dog poop smeared across the sidewalks. And cigarette butts. And trash. There’s almost no relief from the heat in the summer, so it’s best to get away, if you can afford it. People can be mean and creepy. All of these things are not just exclusive to American cities — they are caveats of every major metropolitan area, including Paris. 

It took me two years. Two years of indecisiveness, of failed dreams and miraculous resurrections, to realize that fighting to live in Paris is worth it. 

I can’t exactly say what the catalyst was to deciding that I was going to stay, that I’ll fight to carve out a life for myself here. Maybe it was the political climate in America, making my idealization of the country come to a screeching halt. Maybe it was the realization that nostalgia is often manipulating, a poison for the brain to make the past seem so alluring when that’s exactly what it’s meant to be: something that builds our story, but remains there, stuck. 

Maybe it was the realization that the job market is incredibly difficult everywhere right now. Maybe it was (it definitely was) that the cute boy and I started to become even more serious in wanting to integrate our lives with each other’s. 

It was probably all of those things that made me decide to stay, despite the hardships, despite the seeming impossibility of it all, despite the all-consuming nostalgia, and, at times, maddening cultural differences. I was overly confident two years ago, I have to admit. I thought I was ready to move my life abroad back then, but in fact it took me two years of living here to confirm exactly that. 

Paris has been a city that I hate(d), that I love(d), that I couldn’t/can’t seem to get over. Paris is still just a city, with all its flaws and glamour. But now, it’s my city.

Photo by Elric Pxl 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.

My Journey to France Part 2

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In case you missed Part 1, I’m sharing my unique journey from I’ll-never-live-abroad to nearly-10-years-in-France-and-counting. 

I’m often asked how I did it — and while several of my articles on TAIP touch on how I’ve been able to stay, I wanted to write it all out in a way that could be copied by anyone reading. Okay, maybe not anyone. It took a lot of hard work to build my life here in France, and it isn’t over yet. I’ll be starting my journey to citizenship next, which promises to be full of paperwork and even more determination.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Below I’m picking up where I left off on Part 2: I was an au pair, didn’t want to continue on as an au pair, but didn’t want to go back to the US just yet. Here’s how I figured out a way to stay.

Back to School, It Is

I was always one of those people who said, “Never again!” after finishing my undergrad. It wasn’t that I didn’t like school — on the contrary, I’ve always enjoyed learning — but I was sick of papers and tests and all of the other coursework that went along with it.

Famous last words. As I finished up my second year as an au pair, I didn’t have many options other than the easy-to-obtain student visa. I decided I wanted to get my master’s degree. Public education is cheap here and I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. This time, however, I was going to study something I was actually interested in, not something that would lead to a job one day.

I settled on French Literature. I’ve always loved reading and writing and I figured I might as well study the greats while I was in the city where many of them worked and lived. The only wrench in my plan? I still, after 2.5 years, could not speak or read French. In my defense, I came over here only knowing the basics, and as an American au pair, I was required to speak English with the children I took care of. At this point, I knew could understand about 75% of what was said to me, but I couldn’t speak back. It was a combination of a lack of vocabulary and confidence.

What’s more, I knew I wanted to go to a public school (again, cheap), and to do so as a foreigner I had to have a certain level of French, with a certificate to prove it. So, I looked around for some programs that would meet the student visa requirement of 20 hours per week. I found two: one at the famous La Sorbonne and one at the also famous Université Nanterre. I missed the deadline for La Sorbonne so that left me with Nanterre.

I applied, got in, looked for housing (and found the deal of a lifetime: I traded 10 hours of English lessons per week for a 9m2 sardine box in the sky), went back to America for a few weeks, got my student visa, and returned to home to Paris. Back to school, I went.

(Finally) Learning the Language

And so began my year-long journey to learning French. I loved my program — and recommend it to anyone who wants to live here long-term — I was the only Anglophone and so the only common language my classmates and I had was (broken) French. Our teachers also insisted that we speak in French instead of our native language. It was difficult, but it also felt like the best place to do it. Everyone had an accent, and everyone was trying to learn.

I met some very kind people, finally learned French, and also discovered more about French culture. We went on field trips in Paris and the Île-de-France region and ultimately all became quite close. Spending 20+ hours per week together will do that.

With my B2 certificate in hand, I was finally ready to apply for my master’s. I still wanted to study French Literature, and so started to look at those kinds of programs. I had a couple of informational interviews at various universities in town, before sitting down with one guidance counselor in particular. 

She looked over my resume and experiences and asked why I didn’t want to study English Literature instead of French. At this point, I had started dabbling in freelance writing and had indicated that on my CV, and well…the whole “native English speaker” thing. I told her it felt silly to come all the way to France only to study English. Mais non! she assured me, and encouraged me to look into English Literature programs instead.

The meeting piqued my interest, and soon the curse of the missed deadline struck again — but it was for the best. Nanterre University, where I completed my French course, had a bilingual English Literature master’s program. Because I was already in their system, it was very easy to apply. I was accepted almost immediately (again, native English speaker), paid my tuition (400 € for the year), and began.

I loved my teachers, loved my program, and bonded with my peers. No, I never wanted to go back to school, but completing my master’s at a French public university was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I’ll never regret it. 

But Wait, I Don’t Want to Leave

After my two-year program, spoiler alert, I still wasn’t ready to go home. I met my now-husband about halfway through year one and things had gotten very serious very quickly, in true French dating fashion. We were making serious plans for the future. But…what about my visa?

I obtained the APS visa, which gives you a year to look for work after you graduate from a French institution. I did look for a job but I knew I wanted to work in English (even to this day I can’t write in French beyond simply texting), and finding a job that aligned with that was difficult. I had no issue finding Anglophone clients, but there wasn’t a need for full-time English writers in Paris — or at least, the jobs that I found didn’t pay very well.

The APS visa was quickly running out, so what’s a girl in a relationship with a French person to do? The marriage conversation happens. I’m lucky that I was with someone who I knew I wanted to spend my life with, visa issue or not. So, we made plans to quickly marry at the town hall so that I could obtain the vie privée et familiale visa.

Long story short, I did get that visa and so my future in France was secured for life. I’m not saying that everyone needs to meet a French person and marry them in order to stay here (indeed, there’s an entire shady trade in this which we may write about in the future) — there are a lot of other options out there including the profession libérale visa, or even a long-stay visitor visa if citizenship isn’t important — but in my unique situation, my husband is the reason I was allowed to stay.

That’s the gist of it — a couple thousand words on my journey to France. I hope it will serve as inspiration for anyone else who may find themselves thinking, but wait, I don’t want to leave too.

Photo by Salomé Watel 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 as at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.

My Journey to France, Part 1

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I’ve lived in France on and off since 2014. I’m often asked, “How did you do it?” The short answer is a lot of determination and a refusal to take non as an answer. But, I know a lot of our TAIP readers hope to live in France permanently one day (or are already here and want to know how to stay), so I want to share, step-by-step, my own journey to France and how I made it all work. 

Let’s get right into it.

How it Started

I never imagined I’d ever study abroad, never mind live abroad. One day, when I was still in Rhode Island completing my undergrad, a friend of mine had to pick up some paperwork from the study abroad office. We had plans after so I decided to tag along. While I waited for her, an advisor approached me and asked if I was interested in learning more about my options. I shrugged and said, “Why not?” (if you’ve been in France a while, you’ll also find that this is a very frequently used idiom that indicates French willingness to try something new…another topic for another article) and joined him in his office.

I was studying fashion merchandising at the time, so after taking a look at my transcript he told me that my best options would be Milan or Paris. Was I interested in leaving for an entire semester? (no). Okay, how about the J-term in between the fall and spring semesters? (maybe…). He started pulling out pamphlets and I absentmindedly leafed through them. 

At the time, I had a steady job at a local boutique and a long-term boyfriend. I thought all of that was way too important to leave, even for just a few months. But, as the advisor continued to sell me on my options (do these people get a commission on sign-ups or something?) I slowly started to warm up to the idea. He asked me again, “Milan or Paris?” Without really thinking about it I said Paris — I’d seen movies, read books, heard about the French capital. I knew what it looked like at least, as compared to knowing nothing about Milan — a few taps on his keyboard as he took a closer look at my transcript and he told me that if I wanted to graduate on time, a full semester was my best bet. “What do you think?” 

Again, without really thinking about it I said, “Okay. How do I sign up?”

I didn’t even have a passport at the time and thoughts of my job and boyfriend fluttered through my mind; to be honest, even to this day I don’t know what made me say yes. Unlike some expats, I never had a lifelong dream of living in Paris, and yet, something urged me to do that semester abroad back in 2012. 

I ended up having the best six months of my life, completely fell in love with the city, French culture, the food… I’m sure half of my readership knows exactly what I mean. A group of four of us even ended up staying for an extra month down in Cannes because none of us were ready to leave. Alas, I did have to go back to the US to finish my undergrad, and that I did. Dreams of living in France full-time slowly but surely disappeared as I slipped right back into my former life. I graduated, got promoted at the boutique, and moved into a new apartment with my best friend. Life was “good,” though I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

A Rare Opportunity

In the winter of 2013 I was still working at the boutique and was, to be frank, miserable. So what do miserable people do when they’re bored at work? They scroll through Facebook, naturally. A message popped up — it was from a girl whom I studied abroad with who had never left after our semester. She decided to stay to be an au pair with a Franco-American family because she wasn’t ready to go back to the US.

We were just chatting, catching up, when my curiosity got the best of me. “How were you able to stay?” I asked. Was it difficult? I can’t stop thinking about Paris myself…

She filled me a bit and then told me that in fact, she planned on leaving her au pair position in May of next year. She loved the family (and had been with them since June 2012. It was November 2013 at this point) and was helping them find her replacement. She ultimately wanted it to go to someone she knew — she really cared about the kids — was I interested? I hesitated. Maybe. I told her I’d think about it.

Life got busy with the upcoming holiday season and I soon forgot about the conversation. Fast-forward to March 2014 and my friend messaged me again. Did I have time to think about coming back to France as an au pair? The family still hadn’t found a replacement. Like most young women my age, I had plenty of babysitting experience and I even nannied for a few summers when I was a student. 

Just like that fateful moment in the study abroad office a year and a half earlier, without really thinking about it, I said, “Okay. What’s next?” 

A New Experience

While I’m the first to admit that I stayed in my English-speaking-au-pair bubble for longer than I maybe should have, living and working in France was much different than studying abroad. I had to navigate French culture much more often (I was living with a French person and French children, after all), and learning how to adapt was difficult at times.

I was often homesick after the first six months and the initial excitement wore off — I also struggled to find a core group of friends. But, I did adapt, grow, learn, and eventually, thrive. My years as an au pair were some of my favorite that I spent in Paris and when I did find my people I felt like I truly belonged.

The caveat(s)? I still couldn’t speak French, my au pair contract was running out, I knew I didn’t want to work in fashion anymore, and I also knew I wasn’t ready to go back to my life in Rhode Island.

I had to figure out a way to stay. 

Well, I did figure it out, but that story will have to wait until Part 2.

Photo by Clément Dellandrea 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 as at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.