My French residence permit expired today without me exercising the option to return to France, extend, or apply for citizenship. This puts a definite closure to a dream I once had of establishing a new and permanent life overseas.
Early this year, guided by a curious set of circumstances, I decided to return to the Philippines to take on a career in the Philippine foreign service. Up until yesterday, in the middle of a hectic workday, I was joking with my colleagues that I still had a few hours to spare and I could actually just pack up, take a spontaneous flight and get into Charles de Gaulle just before the 2nd of December ended and still be allowed entry with my valid card. Of course, I didn’t mean it, and my residence card is now ineffective.
Nanghihinayang ba ako? Short answer, no. Nuanced answer is still a no, but I admit reminiscing and fantasizing once in a while on what my life in France would have been had I stayed, pursued a career in Paris and applied for French citizenship this year. These fantasies recur especially during stressful moments at work and when confronted with the agony of living in Manila at times. But these are only fleeting moments of daydreaming.
Above and beyond this fantasy, I’ve decided that my life is worth more than just the pursuit of personal happiness. I wanted my life to be relevant. I’ve long realized that my life would be meaningful if it was in the service of something greater than myself or my immediate family. Fate did not endow me with the sum of my talents and experiences as Filipino the past three decades to live selfishly and obscurely based solely on my own terms and desires. Happiness, I now believe, follows if I pursue fulfillment first and foremost–beyond the day-to-day desire for personal comfort and delight. The career in the Philippine foreign service offered me a perspective beyond one, two, three years. It offered me the a sense of purpose based on a life of service and a sense of fulfillment with the prospect of unique adventures and challenges I don’t think I could get from any other career.
I can say with all sincerity that I am at peace with my decision, and I am looking forward to a lifelong career as a foreign service officer.
Note: This is a re-composed version of a series of tweets posted on the same date.
I have decided not to pursue pending job applications in Paris in order to take on my forthcoming appointment with the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs. This also means I have decided to forego my chance for naturalization in France. Although many of you might think I am making a mistake, at the moment this is what feels right for me.
The two years I spent in France were among the best in my life and the prospect of re-doing my life, low-key and without a care in the world, with all the perks of ‘first world’ citizenship, far from all my profound frustrations in the Philippines was (and still is) so very appealing.
However, I realize that I want a deeper sense of purpose. A low-key private life as a citizen in Europe is a dream! But I also pine for sense of relevance in this world and all that’s happening. In the end, the question that lingered throughout my thought process was–what am I here for? The unique chance to be diplomat excites me. The pieces didn’t fall into place for me to ignore.
Note: This is a re-composed version of a series of tweets posted on the same date. It garnered quite some controversy after it was republished in a website without consent. But I’m nevertheless posting it here for posterity.
This year I have the choice to either enter the Philippine foreign service or start an application for French naturalization, since I technically become eligible this June. Divergent and significant life choices ahead, and the temptation is strong. The election results might play a significant role in my decision.
If you’re wondering how I am eligible so soon–the five (5) year residency requirement for an application for French citizenship is shortened to two (2) years after obtaining a masters degree from a French university. Well, that aside from other conditions of course, but at least I get to tick one major requirement this year. I can theoretically start the application this June because that would have been two years since I graduated from my first masters degree in Paris.
July 20-26, 2020. The first half of last week was spent contemplating on and preparing last minute necessities for my impending departure from Manila. I made last minute trips to the mall, saw some friends, and finally got myself to pack the relatively few things I would be taking with me–considering that I would be staying abroad for a year. They all fit in just one suitcase and a duffel bag, actually. I flew out of Manila on July 22 and arrived in Paris the day after, spending a brief layover in Doha, Qatar. I wrote a separate blog entry narrating the experience of the entire transit.
The level of pre-departure anxiety I am feeling at the moment surpasses the anxiety I felt when I was first about to leave for Paris for my first year of graduate studies. Surely, the second time shouldn’t come off as uneasy as the first? But, hell, now it does. Maybe because I now know how lonely and difficult it can get, I now know how cold, literally and figuratively, it could be. Most importantly, I am leaving at a time of great uncertainty for everyone with regard to the situation of the pandemic, especially for loved ones who I will be leaving in the Philippines, compounded with the political situation that many friends and colleagues will be facing. Everyone will staying home to weather the storm, why am I leaving?
I had looked forward to the start of July to restart writing on this blog–the beginning of the second half of the year seemed like a convenient and appropriate marker to start, I guess, any habit that one wishes to keep for the rest of the year or even longer, sort of like New Year’s resolution at midyear.
I’ll go ahead by stating the obvious–for everyone else I am quite certain–the first half of the year has been defined by the coronavirus pandemic and our collective response and experiences around it. Besides that, I am sure so many other things have happened in our respective communities, societies, and our personal lives. As to my own, I don’t know where to start. It isn’t even just the first half of the year that I’m making up for lost recollection–it’s the entire year since my last blog entry in June of 2019. This includes the entire time I was in Paris as a graduate student, the defining experience of the last twelve months.
Perhaps that’s where I should start with this brief recap. A few weeks ago I had just officially completed my Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in European law at the Université Paris II – Panthéon Assas. (The last three months of which I spent at home in Manila, through online classes with our professors. I chose to fly home for refuge last March after everything went coronavirus haywire in Europe and Asia). My year in Paris was a remarkable experience I sincerely wish I had kept in better posterity in an online journal, with photos and well-written prose, rather than through bits and pieces of tweets and Instagram posts and private snapshots on my phone. More than the masters program, it is the experiences with new friends in Europe, and the many travails of trying to adapt in a seemingly impenetrable society in Paris, that truly made a lasting impression on me. I will try to write more about these experiences through bits and pieces of recollection in future blog entries perhaps.