Tiennot - Post 22- Your Life Isn't Boring

 Here are the facts:

1. My dad was born in France

2. My mother was born in the United States

3. We live in the united States

4. We lived in France.

    I'd like to say that most of my life is A-A-typical. Or rather - typical. I have a mother, a father, a brother, and a dog. I play a sport, I do well in school. I have nice friends, and I'd like to think I'm an ok friend in return. So to be honest, it was a struggle to think of a circumstance unique only to me and the development of the person I am today.

Struggle implies it was hard - not impossible. 

    I was born in Frankfort, Kentucky at around 8 am. in the middle of a blizzard. I write this introduction as if I'm an important historical figure and my birth marked an important historical event. (It didn't). The point is, I was born in the United States, I grew up in the United States, and the culture of hamburgers and consumerism was all I had ever known. Until the third grade.

     December of third-grade, my mother took a sabbatical - 6 months off from teaching to pursue  research, attend lectures, and write books. She decided it was the perfect opportunity to "better our roots." 

    My French heritage has undoubtedly slipped into some conversation we've had, so it wasn't completely surprising to those around me that we would be spending some time across the Atlantic. It was, however, a surprise to me. And devastating to my chance of getting a lead in the school play, "The Emperor Has No Clothes."

    I was, an understatement, reluctant. If I'm honest - and while being honest, completely acknowledge how pig-headed this sounds - I didn't enjoy most of the time I spent in France. I was thrust into another culture where consumerism and hamburgers were nowhere to be seen, friendship was difficult to come by, and solace came in the form of thursday visits to the American Library of Paris. However, to claim I didn't take anything away from the trip would be both pig-headed and a lie. 

    The experience taught me to be resilient - not only in picking up a foreign language, but trying to learn arithmetic, and spelling, and the rest of third grade as well. It taught me to appreciate other cultures - I might not like the fish and asparagus we had for school lunch, but I could understand why other kids devoured it and wiped their little mouths with serviettes, ever so politely, afterwards. It also made me  interested in learning more about my own heritage, at trite as that sounds. 

    I improved my French, placing in national exams, and completing college level French courses in Highschool. I spent summers in Montreal or Normandy at summer camps, or watching football games. I can email and phone my French grandparents and hold a conversation that isn't completely incomprehensible. 

    And that's something I don't think anyone at my school has done or can do. I'm not even sure anyone in my city has had that amazing opportunity. That circumstance. I had the unusual circumstance of being half-French, and half-American. And accompanying that, I have the wonderful gift of knowing who I am.