A One-Way Dose of Reality

By Cassie

I got a one-way ticket to Paris today. It’s the shortest itinerary I’ve ever received from the corporate travel department: leave Lynchburg at 1:52 Sunday afternoon, January 17, board Delta flight 28 in Atlanta at 5:35, and wake up in Paris 6:15 Monday morning January 18. Hell, if everything’s running on time, I could even report to work on my first full-time day in France by 8:30.

As my co-worker Laurie Harris pointed out, sometimes it’s the little things that give you that dose of cold reality: it’s really happening -- I’m really moving to Paris. I got a jolt in my gut as I picked up the wispy little page from the printer with only one travel date on it and, for a fleeting moment, felt what it means to leave and never come back. Of course, I will be coming back. I’ll return when it’s time to pack us up and move the family, likely in March. And I’ll be back on several business trips before we all return to the U.S. in three years. (Yes, Niall, it could be only two years, if you’re lucky.) But I’ll just be visiting when traveling here for business, while living abroad. I’m not sure which line to get in at customs: will I still count as a U.S. resident or will I be a “visitor”? I wonder if I’ll experience the same reality check when I book my return flight at the end of this assignment: I’m really going home.

We’ve gotten passports for Sid, Kian and Niall, and my visa application has been submitted. I’ve talked with the moving company, relocation agency and tax people – both here and in Paris. But nothing has made this adventure as real as that slip of paper now neatly tucked into my travel wallet. Seat 1A, nonstop to my new address.