America the Great

When I left home to live in Chicago for a year, I was twenty years old. I had been with my boyfriend for about three years, and we were wondering where we were going, if we had outgrown each other. I was embarking on an entirely new adventure, and to be honest, I was doing it to see if I could-if there was a possibility for me to be independant and free. I could have gone to England, which would have meant the possibility of going home more often. But I chose Illinois.

I wasn't ready. Or was I?

At twenty I was pursuing post-graduate studies in France. American students my age seemed so much less mature- they struggled with paper writing, and went to class wearing sweatpants. The teaching, too, was strange. You could talk to the professors after class, and sometimes they invited you to their home for tea or dinner. This was terrifyingly different from the very stilted university atmosphere in France.

On the other hand, all those American students I felt so superior to were juggling their studies and a job, sometimes more-they had a driver's licence, they were street-smart. I could snigger all I liked about the plush toys on the bed and the prudish attitude to sex and the ridiculous way they consumed alcohol, they certainly looked independant and free.

I had a nervous breakdown. It had been some time coming, obviously, it didn't spring out of that year in America. I believe that realizing just how incapable I was of making choices was a definite trigger-America made me feel bad about myself. I had fallen in love with so much of it- the energy, the ambition, the goals.

When I went to visit my sister two weeks ago, I was afraid I would feel the same anguish. I visited her beautiful campus gingerly, chatted with her fun, ambitious friends, went to the library, saw a few dorm rooms (no plush animals!).

My sister is so happy in America. She went there at 18. Now our situations were very different- I had to fend for myself, had no one to explain anything, struggled with administrative labors,etc. But her achievements there are nonetheless remarkable. We're talking 4.0 GPA here!

My sister has blossomed in America and that makes me so very happy.

Going there again was liberating. I no longer felt the need to justify how French I was. Yes, I believe that Americans work too much, that Americans are sexually prudish and that everyone should be allowed to drink at 16. But I have a lot to learn from the driven attitude of people my age, who make their own way and never apologize for being successful.

It's been an on/off affair between us, but I truly love America.