Where is my home?
About staying, going, and what it means to me
CARE check*: Are you better at leaving or are you better at staying?
Do you know?
If so, do you know why?
Is it different depending on the area of life (home, relationships, career)?
And what comes up for you with the idea of doing things the other way around for once?
I hope this week’s letter will feel like a helpful example of how we can retrace our history to understand ourselves and what shaped our decision making patterns… so that we can know which patterns we can trust and which patterns might need editing.
In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)
Hi CARE friend,
How are you?
Are you feeling mostly supported or slapped in the face by Earth school at the moment?
I’m definitely closer to the second one right now.
I’m feeling unearthed and unmoored. Like I’m at a crossroad, but a crossroad unlike any one I’ve encountered before, because I just can’t see clearly what is right, left, front or back.
It’s confusing, it’s scary, and… I have to admit it’s also interesting.
The Universe definitely got my intention, and while my mind is stuck in a never ending tantrum, my gut feels very alive and my heart very calm.
So I know I’m okay. I know it means I’m learning something pivotal.
I don’t feel alone, I feel supported: I know it’s an invitation, not a punishment. It’s an initiation, not a crumbling down. It’s a journey in the underworld meant to help me build what I dream of. It doesn't feel like falling apart. It feels foundational.
Now it doesn't feel great, but my inner sanctuary and compass are on board, so I’m mothering my weary brain into acceptance.
To be honest, at first I was trying to force my brain into acceptance.
I wrote myself a Letter From Love this morning (check out this life changing practice on magical
’s Substack) and Love urged me to stop harassing my poor brain into accepting what it is just not ready to fully accept at the moment… To trust that wanting to accept it is enough! And Love also added that I didn’t even “have” to do that.Feeling disappointed, restless and unsure is allowed apparently… I just never had read that memo until now.
One of my most pressing soul yearning at the moment is to take roots. To find my home and feel at home. To ground.
Home is a tricky subject for my psyche. There’s a lot of wounding there, and it’s a place where I’m realizing more and more that my young inner Maiden needs remothering.
I grew up in a beautiful house in Paris that was shared between my aunt and uncle’s family and my parents and me. It was picture perfect on the outside and it was full of grief and unprocessed rage (mostly my mother’s) on the inside. I was too little to remember a time before my aunt got cancer and she died when I was thirteen, shattering any sense of safety I had been able to foster in our challenged family dynamics. On top of that, my mother reminded me daily that that house was not mine (I didn’t know at the time that it was actually not hers… because my father had not added her name on the deed when she moved in) and required me to call before coming home from school if it was earlier than expected for whatever reason. Failure to do so attracted painful reminders on my cheeks.
I never truly moved out of there, I fled.
My parents went away for a week when I had just started Med school (in France that happens right after high school) and a phone call from my mother finally broke me into awakening. I met the limits of my capacity for cruelty. We were studying in one of Paris’ gorgeous public libraries with my best friend, Lou, and after hanging up, I joined her on the bench she was taking a break on, at the top of a beautiful stony staircase. She took one look at me and without waiting for any update on the conversation, she told me very matter-of-factly: “this is it leo, it’s time to leave that house and break free from her hold on you. You can sleep for three weeks on my couch and that will give us time to figure this out.”
And so I went home, packed what I could pack, and asked another friend who had a car to come pick me up the next morning.
That was it.
In less than 24 hours I had decided to leave and left the only address I ever had… with a plan only for the first 21 nights—until Lou’s partner came home.
For the next six months I found shelter after shelter thanks to the generosity and love of my amazing friends… I was scared, but I lived in the present moment—which is somewhat easier to do at 19 and when buried into your studies. There was no time to grieve obviously and I took it one week at a time. However, I didn’t have to get a job as my father slowly understood my decision and started supporting me financially more and more. One beautiful thing about my dad is how he always put my education first: he wanted me to remain fully dedicated to my medical training, and he ended up renting me a small studio at the beginning of the next academic year.
It was only 130 sq ft, a 6-floor walk up and there was only 6.5 min of hot water available per shower, but to me it was heaven. It was my first true home and a charming little cocoon—“under the roofs” as we call those little Parisian nests that used to house the wealthy’s house staff. My friends would come every night to drink rose wine and eat pesto pasta once we were done studying, and I just loved it there. I felt safe for the first time ever and I thought I would live there forever (yes, I was young and very romantic: forever home was a concept I still thought existed and living in a shoe box felt very stylish to me).
Unfortunately, a year later, the landlord decided to sell it to a neighbour who wanted to expand his own condo... My lease would not be renewed. I had to move out and unconsciously made it confirm that I would never deserve a steady home. It split my unworthiness wound open—and to make matters worse, the boy I adored had just broken up with me, a week before I learned that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer.
In a nutshell, my new world was shattered right when I was starting to trust that things were getting better—and my most wounded parts are still unlearning that this is proof that happiness is not an option for me.
Again, Life came to my rescue before I even found the courage to ask for it, and I ended up finding another apartment in the same hallway, quite miraculously. Moving would still feel excruciating but at least it would be easy—that was no small silver lining—and so I moved into this new studio that everyone loved but me.
It was bigger, it was charming in a more modern way, it had a bathtub and unlimited hot water—but it didn’t feel like home. While everyone (including me) marveled at how lucky I was, there was again no room to grieve. I was bleeding from a wound I had no awareness of—I knew nothing of trauma at the time—and I wish I could go and hold that terrorized young leo who made it mean that she would never belong anywhere.
After that, I buried myself in Med school first and then residency, never trying to anchor anywhere anymore and thereby feeling more and more disconnected from all that makes me me. I had stopped singing, I had stopped writing creatively, I had stopped dreaming. I had exiled my New York dreams and let saviorism become the fuel (at first) and (then) the death of me.
Oncology was my day job and supporting my dad through cancer was my side hustle.
I withered away slowly… until out of despair, I finally listened to the screams of my inner world long enough to understand that if I was to survive in Earth school, I would need to start singing again.
My mind had no idea that it would (or even could!) change everything, but of course it did.
As my inner spark found fuel again, my heart slowly awakened. As my heart awakened, I remembered.
I couldn’t remember what it meant to feel safe and anchored—you can’t remember what you’ve never experienced—but I remembered the hope I had had as a child that, someday, SOMEHOW, I would know for sure what having a home feels like.
By then, I had become a physician so I could apply for a mortgage to buy an apartment and I also inherited some money, which felt like a sign. I decided to go look for the perfect apartment… and it found me before I even started looking!
It is a pattern that I am now recognizing: I have always felt like I didn’t deserve a home and YET this is the one area in which the Universe has always provided for me in the most magical ways.
I mentioned my will to find a new place that I would truly cherish and love to my best friend (yes, same guardian angel more than a decade later) and she emailed me an offer that same day with a note saying “that place made me think of you!”
As I looked at the pictures of the living room’s white hardwood floor, stylish kitchen, and elegant bedroom, I felt a full body YES and immediately made an appointment to visit it—at that time, apartments in Paris were sold in a day. It was in the most inviting neighborhood, right at the bottom of Rue des Martyrs, and I fell in love with it instantly, which is why the owner chose me. She was moving out to follow another dream and buy a bigger place with her partner, but she wanted another woman in her early thirties to take over that place that had meant the world to her when she was looking for who she was. And I will be eternally grateful for that because finding myself there I did… and it led me to New York.
I spent months turning this little abode into the most welcoming nest. I made sure that every tiny touch meant something to me and my nervous system started to heal for the first time. Filled with heartwarming lights, pastel colors, artful pictures of New York and golden decorative objects, it was a delight for the senses. I had the comfiest bed and I pruned everything that no longer served—including my career in Medicine.
While awaiting my because-of-the-pandemic-delayed VISA, I started waking earlier and earlier and doing yoga every morning (thank you magical Adriene & Benji). I took long walks in my lovely neighborhood and I got my coaching certification while taking as many singing lessons as I could. I started my trauma healing journey and learned that I had a body and how to move back in. The world was on pause and so was I, as I was letting go of everything I had held as true before… Everything but my undying love for New York and my singing passion.
Leaving this treasured home felt hard but, of course, I knew that no matter how many pics of New York I put on my walls, Paris would never be New York and it was time for me to cross the Atlantic and never look back.
Which is more easily said than done of course.
Last week I found a buyer for this sweet Parisian sanctuary and she’s a woman in her thirties looking to find herself there! It’s perfect, it feels fated, I’m truly happy with how things unfolded AND it’s a tough goodbye.
I knew I wanted to release this condo: I have not enjoyed renting it and I have no plans of coming back to France whatsoever! This place deserves to be united with an owner that can cherish it and be nurtured by it in return. It is time to sell AND this is the only place I truly ever could call mine! So again… reparenting is in order: my young inner Maiden is wondering if she’s losing her only chance at having a steady home.
She’s not! I’m a New Yorker now and, four years and 11 months in, I have no doubt whatsoever that this is where I want to finally take root. I made it home. This is where I belong: in this concrete jungle full of dreams, awe and paradoxes. In this gorgeous energy bath that will test you and nurture you to your core like no other place on Earth—if your heart and mind are opened.
I know I can let my Paris apartment go, because the apartment of my dream can only be on the side of the Atlantic I’m writing from right now.
I know it’s the right decision. It’s a simple decision too AND that doesn’t mean it’s an easy one to live by. Grief is Love… and I loved this tiny safe heaven with my whole heart.
Also, while I’m releasing the last anchor I had in France, I’m contemplating where to ground in New York in a very practical way, because my lease is up.
When I arrived in New York, I found the most gorgeous apartment in the Upper West Side. Pandemic prices made it possible for me to live in a gorgeous and spacious one bedroom by Riverside drive. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was: I had found an apartment I loved even more than the one I had in Paris… It was perfect, I didn’t take a second there for granted! and once decorated, it turned into a home that I will forever remember and hold dear.
It was hard to move out of it last year… but the rent had gone up again and I couldn’t afford it any longer.
I was at peace with that. Somehow, I felt ready. It had been my landing place but I had changed so much in those first three years in the US, that it made sense to have a change of scenery. I had shed a lot of limiting beliefs and I was yearning for a place that I could move into as a singer, and not only as a woman who loved to sing.
I had also fallen in love with Brooklyn and thought it was time to cross literally and figuratively the bridge between who I had thought I had to be and who I was always meant to become.
But money was scarce, and moving is very costly. I wasn’t sure how to make it work and if Brooklyn was even an option. That’s when Magic knocked on my door again.
My landlord, with whom I have a great relationship, called me after receiving my letter explaining why I couldn’t renew and made me a beautiful offer. There was another smaller but very cute one bedroom available two floors down and I could either move into that one without any rent increase OR, if I truly didn’t like it, he would let me stay one more year in the same apartment at the same price.
I knew I would feel very uncomfortable staying where I was, knowing that he would easily re-rent it for $600 more each month than what I was paying (which he did in less than a day) and even if I didn’t love the new apartment quite as much, it is a very lovely place. ALSO the person who lived there before me was a singer! Which meant that my limiting belief of “if I sing in here my neighbor will kill me” would be lifted since she was clearly alive three years in (!)
That was my sign and I moved in.
I told myself it was temporary. I knew that my money situation would improve over the coming months and I also have this lifelong dream of having a dog, which was not possible at the time in my building.
I told myself that I was entering my chrysalis and that it would be a cocoon year, allowing me to embody my singing fully and then move to Brooklyn with a four legged friend as a roommate.
I was not wrong about the butterfly metaphor! This year has been deeply transformative… and it has been a bit brutal. I received the invitation for a new descent in the underworld and I did turn into goo.
If you’ve been reading these letters for a while you’ll know that I got surgery for melanoma, rethought a lot of my most important relationships, started taking my Musical Theater training seriously, met the dark feminine, turned 40, and that I’ve been exploring every aspect of the healing journey to repair my relationship with my father who’s slowly dying.
I have changed at the deepest level—which mostly means of course that I’m more “me” now than I’ve ever been before. (That “me” that I knew so well when I was 4yo and that I had completely forgotten about by the time I turned 30...)
All in all it makes sense to close that experiment and move on, right?
But honestly, I feel bone tired. Those first 40 years on Earth have been quite harrowing and I did change country in 2021 and moved again less than a year ago.
My leg is still somewhat recovering from the melanoma excision and I am grieving in more ways than one. Freeing my singing voice can only be done through extensive daily practice out of my comfort zone and with the support of a lot of trauma healing and exploration. I’m committed to this CARE check adventure, to my songwriting journey, and I’m also writing a book as a foundation for a musical. On top of that I have a job and am still acclimating to a whole new country and culture at a time of acute collective wound inflammation.
Looking for an apartment in New York is no small feat and my first experiences have not been as smooth as I hoped they would be. There are many boxes to check on your application when there is so much more demand than offer on the house market, and that one apartment I fell deeply in love with is now someone else’s home.
That is fine, I truly believe that rejection is redirection, but that also felt like an invitation to ponder whether staying where I am wanted could be a better answer than my usual: “let’s leap in the unknown”!
And I am wanted where I live… When I told my landlord that I had to move because of my dream of having a dog, he first said that there was nothing he could do, which I totally understood! But then a week later, he called me and said he had decided to let me have a dog.
Which means that I’m getting a furry life partner whether I cross the bridge or not!! Which means I could have a dog even sooner if I stay… Which means that it might be even more certain that I will have a dog if I STAY than if I go!
And as Love wrote to me last year when I was wondering if it was okay to postpone my Brooklyn dream since my landlord was offering me such a great deal: “Contrary to your ingrained beliefs, not everything in your experience needs to be bold and hard! Yes, you are called to move to Brooklyn but no one ever said it was supposed to happen in 2024 or even 2025... What matters most is for you to learn that you can be welcome somewhere and that you do truly deserve a home.”
I do want to move to Brooklyn, I feel that deep soul stirring every time I arrive at Borough Hall. Something has shifted in my energy and I feel more aligned with that neighborhood than the UWS now… BUT I love the UWS and it is such a lovely place to have a dog. I’m close to magical Central ParlRiverside and 2 minutes away from enchanting Riverside park. I can sing here, I can write and I can love. I am in New York and even if it’s a long commute, I can go to Brooklyn at my heart’s desire. So the truth is that there is no real rush to cross that bridge.
Yet it feels urgent. Urgent in a way that makes me wonder if it’s a trauma response.
Indeed, how do you convince a nervous system that has only found safety in leaving, in big leaps of faith, in extraordinary transformations and in letting my heart and intuition take precedence over any limitation… that it can be safe to now “stay”?
That it might be the answer? That it might be the invitation? That it might even be how the healing happens this time?
That no one will be disappointed in me because I don’t have to prove to everyone (or me!) how brave I am every single morning to be allowed to exist?
How do you reframe staying as an act of self-reclamation when you’re so terrified that it means that you’re giving up and selling out on your dream?
How do you do “doing things differently” differently—because yes, ironically, keeping things the same is what would be novel to me?
As I write that, I think about how I always coach my clients on learning how to stay before they act on their decision to leave, so that they can be sure that they’re leaving out of love and not fear…
Of course, following that same reasoning, I coach them on creating an exit plan that works for them before deciding to stay also! So that they know for sure that they’re staying for love and not because it’s comfortable or familiar.
Also, I will be getting a dog and keep pouring into my artistic journey in both cases, so things WILL be changing anyway!
And it’s funny how similar it looks to my Paris journey, right? I’ve been in this position before of being somewhere that is great, just not the best fit for me. That “miracle” apartment in the same building that appeared to save me when I had to leave the one I truly loved!
So if I trust the pattern… it means that I’m meant to stay in this one until I’m truly ready to leave and that my dream abode will then appear.
My truth is that I’m just not ready to decide today. I don’t know how to stay and I don’t know if I have it in me to leave. This apartment is not a place where I see myself staying for many years, but I’m very cognizant of how lucky I am to live there still.
So I’ll choose kindness and let myself be for a few days. I’ll let the mud settle and trust that the way will appear. I’ll let Life show me what I need to see so that I can know what is loving guidance and what is trauma reenacting.
I’ll stay in the unknown for a little while longer, because this is where the magic always finds us: when we find the courage not to leave or not to stay but to ground in the in-between.
Learning how to love ourselves through uncertainty is how we create the inner safety we yearn for and I guess the answer to my most burning question is that I know where my home is!
It’s right here, WITHIN.
Sending you kindness, love and warmth—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not fear anymore.
leo