After 11 years of adventures in the lands of Alsace-Moselle, Cote d’Azur and the Savoyard Alps, my journey through France is approaching its end. I have reached my final destination. I sincerely hope I will never have to come back, as I believe that my mission is over and this long voyage has reached its conclusion. For me, it has been mostly a spiritual journey: I forced my limits and the trip has challenged me to deal with unfinished psychological issues. I paid with my time and my health.

At the beginning I didn’t know who I was and what defined me. I had to discover this. I had to determine what I like and what I don’t like, what is me and what is not me, what I like to keep in the light and what I like to hide in the shadow. I also realized that my time is limited, that I cannot afford to postpone what is important for me; I learned that things that do not happen now might not happen at all in the future.

I could write about the failing economy and social life of France, I could write about a medical system that has become inferior to that of my native Romania, I could write about the educational system that is completely jammed in the distant past, plagued by a lack of international open-mindedness and cooperation, I could write about mentalities that completely lack entrepreneurial instincts and have lost contact with reality, I could write about the excruciating loneliness I lived here… But I won’t write about all these; France has been my home and one should honor the opportunity of living here and experience it thoroughly.

What I’d love to do next? To speak English. To continue my path to psychotherapy. To write. And to go really international. At least I know what I want; it took me years to get here…

The picture of this article is from a railway station, one of the haunting symbols of my life which was spent mostly on the road from one place to another. I am my voyages. Before me there is a piano on which writes “À vous de jouer”. It translates by “It’s up to you to play”. I don’t know if it’s a statement aimed at life or at me.

I have no idea what I will be doing next and where I’ll be. I am in the mist. It will be challenging to manage my stress related to uncertainty. But I am, at the same time, relieved. A chapter of my life is about to close.