Bonjhola

Ep 25 - Flashback Episode - 50 Day Countdown to Paris: Navigating Uncertainty with Optimism

• Rebecca West & Aimee Delamore

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In this flashback episode of Bonjhola Aimee asked Rebecca about how she was feeling about the 50-day countdown to her upcoming move to Paris. Their differing outlooks—Rebecca optimistic about champagne celebrations in Paris, Aimee cautious about the challenges ahead—reflect the emotional journey of preparing to leave behind life in the United States. They chat about navigating visa uncertainties, logistical planning like pet health certificates, and the emotional weight of deciding what to keep or let go. Rebecca shares her aspirations for personal growth in Paris, aiming to escape the relentless hustle culture of the U.S. and embrace a slower, intentional lifestyle.

Where to find Aimee: 

Where to find Rebecca: 

Welcome to Bonjola, a podcast about two women, Amy and Rebecca, who each moved from the United States to Europe to become expats, Amy to Spain and Rebecca to France. We're here to share the highs, the lows, and the logistics of this adventure, encourage you to follow your own move abroad dreams, and remind you that you're not alone when the going gets tough. Enjoy.

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banjo.

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No, you first. No, you

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we'll get our rhythm down.

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So how many days till you leave?

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There are 49 days until we get on a plane and 50 days until we land in Paris. And those numbers are both in my head because I am the glass half full person in my relationship. I'm like, that is the day we'll be drinking champagne. And he is a glass half empty person and he is like, that is how many days we have left. So 49 and 50.

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This is, uh, very familiar to me. Um. My husband Shane, being the glasses full guy,

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Mm.

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being like, you know, X days till we get outta here and yeah, let's get the glass of champagne on the plane. And me being like, no. When the visa is approved and cards are in our hands, then we can exhale. But until then, can happen at a moment's notice.

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Living with the uncertainty is so insane, and of course in your case, you didn't have that visa until weeks after you'd. Was it months, months after you landed in Spain, so that's a long time to hold your breath.

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Good thing that I've practiced.

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I think this is one of the things that I'm finding about this journey is like there's this hurry up and wait and, and that takes so many different forms. Like number one, there's this, I just wanna be in Paris. Like what a cool thing. I just wanna be there and be celebrating it. But then there's the But I'm also grieving this life I'm leaving behind, even if I'm not really hyper aware of the grief. And so I don't want it to come too soon. And then you're like, and I also really wanna get there so I can start my new life. Um, you know, so there's this push and pull, and then you just have no con, you have to like. Do all the right things, but you have no control over it all working the way you expect, but you have no reason to think it won't work because millions of people have done this before you. The amount of uncertainty my husband and I are carrying around with us right now. We still have to go to the consulate in another state. We still have to get that 10 days ahead of when you land in the new country Cat health certificate. we have all of these doctor's appointments scheduled, several of which we know will be missed by these other random things that we don't know when they're gonna happen. My insights are a roiling mess.

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Do you remember the point when my insides were a roiling

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I do

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I was like, you were like, let's meet for lunch. And I was like, I can't eat food

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I do

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but I'll take this digestive AIF as lunch instead.

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Yeah. It, it messes with you. And then, so this, so like I said, we're, we're 50 ish days away. We have to start thinking about what we're gonna take with us.

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I think that. If I remember correctly, the point in time in which we got the news that completely, you know, about potentially changing the time that we would leave,

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Mm-Hmm.

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and that threw my digestive system into turmoil for like two weeks. I believe that was about 50 or so days from our departure

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It was pretty close to the end, but there was still kind of plenty of time to be really nervous.

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Yeah, it was like the beginning, the end of May, beginning of June, and we were scheduled to leave July 3rd. So it was really kind of, so there's, there's a, there's a n equals two experimental, you know, that the, the is on its way to being proven

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Right. We have a whole, we have a party of two people. At 50 days, you're going

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weeks

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to lose your shit.

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Yeah, six weeks before you leave your digestive system, your digestive system go haywire.

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Well, that's fun news for, for me and for everybody else,

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It's not permanent. Don't worry.

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so, yeah. Okay. So the impermanence of things. We've got a life. We've got a life here in the United States, and this weekend our job is to practice pac. Like how much stuff are we actually trying to fit into suitcases? Do we need to pay for an extra suitcase? Do we need to buy an extra suitcase? And so we're walking and my husband and I are experiencing this pretty differently, I would say, because he is so eager to make the transition and I'm definitely more nostalgic about my life here and all of our stuff. And so it's, and so like it's the. The standing, like just a stupid example. The standing mirror on my vanity, right? One of those mirrors that stands up on its own, it's not a special mirror. I'm sure I picked it up at Bed Bath and beyond a million years ago, right? Whatever. But it's been in my life for so long. It's literally the object I have looked at every morning for decades. So it's like objects get stories simply by existing in your life for a really long time. And so I, I'm touching every ob, literally every object. I've, you know, files and craft materials and costume stuff, and my, my wedding dress and my, my, you know, like, and you have to decide what you're keeping long term. But storing, which has a cost, has a price, what you're keeping and storing in a way where you could get to it real quick, you know, assuming this whole thing works out and you want your stuff, I guess. What you're taking with you and then what you're actually getting rid of. And then that whole pile of what you're getting rid of. Like, okay, now how logistically do we get rid of it? What do we take to Goodwill? Do we try and rehome some of this stuff? You know, we, we imbue our stuff with this sense of significance and value that it does not have. So that's the phase

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not, not in a, not in a monetary sense, no.

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Exactly. And not to other people, you know, just because I'm like. Um

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I will say, I will say my fainting couch, which was the first big ticket item that I purchased as an adult I moved to Seattle, 22 years old, that I had forever. The person that I sold it to was so ecstatic,

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hmm.

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so happy, so thrilled to have it. That will refute your assumption that it doesn't hold value for others,

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Well, no, I'm not saying it doesn't. I mean, we're selling the majority of our F furniture to somebody who moved into a big house and needs to furnish it and I know it's going to get a new life. It's really, it's not so much in the big pieces'cause those can literally furnish somebody's life. That's exciting.

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Even the little pieces though.

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Yeah.

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little pieces. Absolutely. Like if you think someone is not gonna completely fall in love with some of your octopus stuff, that I'm sure is not gonna make the cut like

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yeah, but do you, do you put energy into trying to find the person who wants your octopus stuff, or do you just say, that's a silly way for me to spend my. My energy.'cause like I think one of the other things I've discovered at this phase is that my battery just doesn't hold as much juice or it just de powers faster. Same amount of juice, but it's just going through it a lot faster. So I'll get to a certain place in my day and I'm just tapped out to the point where I'm the kind of person who usually pays my bills When you get the bill in the mail. Like, I'm not gonna pay it. If it's due on the 18th and I get the bill on the eighth, I will pay it on the 17th.'cause I don't want them to have my money early. But I set up that payment the day I get the bill. I am a planner. I, I am ahead of the game. That is not Rebecca right now. Rebecca right now is, oh crap, that deadline is in three minutes. Woo. I met it and so far I've only had to pay one late fee on the thing. And again, the fact that I've paid any. that's not Rebecca. I got a, I got a rolling through a red light turn on, a right turn traffic ticket. Again, no big deal. That's not Rebecca. This is not me.

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this person?

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Yeah, yeah.

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welcome to a side of you you didn't realize existed.

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I know. It is really challenging the inner perfectionist. I'll tell you what

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is the first step.

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to falling apart and being a terrible human.

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no. So remind me again, remind me again what, you're hoping to achieve for yourself moving to Paris.

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I love the opening of that sentence because I. As listeners wouldn't know, this isn't starting out as my dream. This is my husband's dream to go to Paris, and so this is part of why I think this is such a hard transition for me. I am hoping something is in Paris for me, I don't have any proof for myself. Is there yet? You know, Damien has the cord on blue. It is there. It is tangible. It is why he is going, I am going to Paris because my husband will be there. Now I'm taking the adventure because this is what I want for my life. So it's a weird question to ask me because honestly the result I want is twofold. I want to know that I am strong enough to do hard things. That is the weirdest thing to say. But I wanna know that I can make myself uncomfortable and thrive anyway. And I can't know that that happened until I'm there and thriving. Right? So I'm going off of faith. The other thing I'm really hoping, and this is the part that is for me, I've always wanted to try a different culture on like I, and that's always been true. I like, I love language. I love that we can communicate in other languages. And I love how much our culture affects the choices we make. We think we're making choices for ourselves, but they're so in informed by the breakfast cereals we grew up eating, like all of it. Right. So I, I'm curious to put myself in a place that is in, for example, a walking city. I want a space where I'm going to naturally climb stairs and walk miles.'cause that's just part of the culture. I want to put myself in a culture where the food is closer to the farm, right? Where the food is more natural and the ingredients are more precious. And those are just two examples. So yes, there's a lot I want for myself out of this adventure.

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You've also stated, and what I was alluding to that you're perhaps forgetting

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Tell me Aimee.

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is that you've told me on more than one occasion that you are hoping that the difference in. such high regard for workaholic will be dismantled within you, or at least tamed, right? That, that this, that, this, know, work until you drop. Um,

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Culture.

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it's not, an. Yeah. Yeah. This the sort of the hustle,

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Yeah.

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culture of the United States, right? wanna step out of that. You've told me you wanna step outta that. You want to have something a little bit more balanced for yourself.

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So for our listeners who can only hear us and they cannot see me right now, I am shaking my head no. The whole time Aimee is saying this and it's,

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I'm wrong?

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well no, because I'm really battling this. So we just started watching Ted Lasso because I watch everything about five years late.

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That's funny. We're watching Ted Lasso too.

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Oh, that is funny. Okay. And of course I've watched Emily in Paris and both of these are Representations of the overly aggressive optimism of Americans, right. I can do anything and I can do it all at the same time. And, and there is something beautiful about that too. And so as I'm, I'm watching Ted Lasso. It's not that he's a workaholic, but he is bringing Americana to the table hardcore. and it's ridiculous. And in, in some ways it's saccharine and it's over like overly sweet and I love it. So I don't know. I am very Jekyll and Hyde mentality right now of, you know what? I am an overambitious, overachieving American, and maybe I should actually embrace that about myself. Like I don't know where the balance is gonna land.

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Ted Lasso doesn't work himself into the ground,

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No, he does not.

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and I have never heard you say you want to tone down your about what you can do. That's never what you've said. You've

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don't those two things go hand in hand, like I'm a yes person, so I say yes to.

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not But they're not mutually exclusive. You can be an optimistic person without working yourself to death.

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Tell us more about that,

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I dunno.

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Aimee.

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Tell me, tell me if I'm wrong, tell me if I'm wrong, but I have heard you say that you want to have better balance between your home life and your work life.

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I have definitely said that Aimee is not wrong. No, I have said that. Um, so why am I right now? To, to everybody? Um, I have felt very stretched. So I always talk about in my own work, Greg McCowan's book Essentialism, which I think is one of the best books ever. And I am frequently a circle with 50,000 arrows coming off of it. So I wouldn't necessarily even describe it as like work life balance or personal versus, um, ambition balance. I would like to have fewer ambition irons in the fire. Like, like really be able to dedicate my attention and energy to a few things and do them just remarkably well instead of a million things, and still expecting myself to do all of them remarkably well.

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and back to what you had mentioned a few moments ago, do you, can you see how this. Struggle you're having with perfectionism is the beginning of that potential

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I hope.

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for

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I hope so. And I mean, again, that's why I am like, it's why I am doing the hard things. It's why I'm taking this.

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learning how to thrive, and that involves letting go of perfectionism. Like you've got to let go of the perfectionism to thrive. Remember, you're not dead in a ditch, right?

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Oh,

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That's

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as far as I can tell.

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That's the motto. That's the motto. Now, after the, after successfully completing Expatriation to Spain, if you're not dead in a ditch, you're

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You are doing okay. Just take the next step. Yes. We're, um, there's another show we're watching, uh, lessons in Chemistry, which is quite depressing so far. Really beautifully shot. The costuming is amazing and it's a, a great film, but it, or, um, show, but it talks about running and it talk and you're a runner. And the way it describes running is. No matter how hard it is, all you have to do is put the next foot in front. I'm not a runner, so I don't know if that's how it feels to you, but I thought it was a really nice description of when we do hard things, it's, you don't have to think about getting through the whole marathon, you just have to put your foot down one more time, and then one more time after that.

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Yeah. Yeah. And, and for those of you familiar with the Seattle area, many of my marathons, I have been at the place where I'm like, okay. Just think of this as a loop around GreenLake. You can do a loop around

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Hmm.

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which is a 2.8 mile loop around a small manmade lake in Seattle. Right? And when you think about down 26 miles into, you know, you go, you go as far as you can, as comfortable, you ride the high, you love on the crowds, right? Whatever. And then you get to the point where it sucks. You're just like, all right, we're just gonna. around GreenLake, oh hey look, we're just gonna go around GreenLake, And you do that two or three times, however many times it takes, and then all of sudden you're at the finish line and you're still alive.

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You know, I think this is such a great metaphor for it, and I love that you just said, you know, you love on the crowds because especially with Paris, it's just got such cachet that people are just like, Rebecca, you're living my dream. And in some ways I feel bad sometimes because I'm like, yeah, I am definitely living mine and other people's dreams. And it's so hard and you don't wanna rain on other people's dreams and be like, this is hard. And they don't really wanna hear how hard it is unless they're about to do it, in which case they want all the dirt, right?

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Right,

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So yeah, the crowds are like, you're gonna Paris, and I'm like, I'm Paris and., I'm on like, mile, what is it, 17 going, what?

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Yep.

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Why did I want to do this marathon?

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Because, In my mind. In my mind, I am in Paris waiting for you to deplane, I am totally putting a finisher's medal

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Oh,

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your neck and saying, did it.

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I love that idea. I really do. I will emotionally put that around my neck when I get off the plane.

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Yeah.

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given that my brain is a hot mess. I don't even know what the takeaway is today from this episode. Can you sum this up in some pithy Aimee way? Today for us

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Well, your brain's a hot mess. And what, remind me again, what is the state of your gut? How is your intestinal

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they are full of very large. I called them dinner plate butterflies. I.

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Dinner plate butterflies. Okay, um. Your mind is a shivering and your guts are a quivering. Is that

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Sure that's a takeaway, but it's excellent poetry. Oh.

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is State of the Union right now in Seattle, Washington, with my good friend Rebecca West.

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I don't know. I think it's that even when you know you wanna do things, you've gotta know that you're gonna, there's gonna be days when you're really questioning your choices, and that doesn't mean you made a wrong decision. It just means you're on mile 17 of a stupid marathon.

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Oh, on that note, like that's so relevant to several different things that are happening right now. Um, one, it's, it's January, right? It's New year. Um, lots of people are making goals and so I'm having conversations right now about how I. You know, it's kind of setting expectations for people who are making big goals and that you want to expect it to be hard because it will be, you wanna expect slip backs, you wanna plan for plateaus in your, your training or your weight loss or whatever it is. And, um. That, that's, that's part of the process. And when it comes to that point where you are super frustrated that you're not seeing the results as quickly as you want to, have to go back to your why. You have to go back to your values, your intentions, like why did you even set up, set yourself up for this. What is the purpose? The more you can stay connected to that value, that inherent intrinsic value you have that is being manifested in this external change of behavior, the more you can do the hard thing, because it's coming from an internal source. And then I was having a, you know, I'm part of this. Online marketing group, um, of, of women in the health field. And, uh, one woman was talking about how she is and how hard this is and how, you know, she's putting all of this energy into marketing and she's not getting the results she expected. one of the other women said, you're allowed to quit, but not when you're having a hard day.

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Oh, that's juicy.

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Right. I was like, damn, that's gold. You can never quit when it's a hard, like is, yeah, absolutely. You have that power. That's totally a possibility, but never on a bad day.

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That is, I mean, it's always, we, we should always be taking a breath before we make big decisions. Good decisions. Exciting decisions or decisions to quit. It's always good to sleep on it. You know, I, I love, I love everything you just said. It's so good. I use it in my work as an interior designer. It's like what you're trying to choose what lamp to put in the room. Go back to your inspiration and your goals, like will this lamp you just fell in love with, go with what you were trying to do in the first place. But what really came up for me, as you were just saying that is I know why I'm doing this. And it goes back to the I can do hard things, but the more positive way of saying that is, I'll say it through the clothing that I'm thinking about wearing in Paris. Every time I make a big transition, my wardrobe is a part of that transition. What, how am I gonna show up in this new chapter and this new story?

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Are there people for whom the wardrobe isn't part of that?

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Apparently, yeah, I've heard this is true. So for me, it's it, and it hasn't, it's always been this, but it's a new version of it. It's adventure. It's kind of like Carmen San Diego meets Sherlock Holmes. It's this detective, and it's because the why behind what I'm doing, I can sum it up in one word, which is curiosity. I don't know what's on the other side of this door. And that in and of itself is the inherent value. I have lived a life that I have been very comfortable in for 15 years. I grew an empire. I grew a moneymaking machine. I had employees. I, I was queen of my world, and it felt fantastic, which is why I keep going, why have I done this to myself? But it's because I, I took that as far as it could go. I could either just keep polishing that gem, which is already beautiful, or I could take this new rough cut stone and go, I wonder what's inside of it. And that that is my purpose for being alive. I want to open up that rock and see what's inside of it, and that's what I'm doing. And it could be something The point is we don't know what's on the inside, but the only way we'll find out is to get on the plane and find out.

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That's right. Yep.

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So courage to everybody.

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back.

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What's that?

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You can always go back.

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You can always, most decisions are undoable. Yeah. Actually, did I tell you my word of the year? Because that's how we'll finish this episode.

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Oh, that's perfect. Let's share our words of the year.

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Mine is to be brave, which I think aligns with everything we just talked about. So. Be brave

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does.

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and you

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Minus.

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be consistently brave is an even best idea. it for today. So to our listeners, I say abian to which is until very soon.

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And I'll say, I only know so few, so few, salutations in Spanish.

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It can be finished

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just,

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or Norwegian.

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go, I'll just go, I'll just go with the, the classic Adios today.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Bonjola. If you did, the best thing you can do is share it with another person brave enough to move abroad. See you next time!