I didn't leave corporate. I was told to leave.
January 2023. Seattle ER. Four words from my cardiologist: “Your job is killing you.”
Within a year I was living in a paid-off 17m² apartment in Paris. I didn't have a guide. You do.
35 years. 42 years. Many attempts.
I spent 35+ years in internal audit at Fortune 100 corporations and Big 4 firms — staring at screens, presenting findings in drab conference rooms, making large companies more efficient and profitable. It ended somewhere around a Star-Kist cannery in American Samoa, watching tuna move down an assembly line, realizing no one would ever remember me or the reports I was writing.
France had been in my life since I was 17. A forged signature on a student exchange application. A French boy named Emmanuel arriving two weeks later. Quebec, where I understood nothing but something clicked anyway. A château wedding. A Mediterranean cruise. 21 annual trips to Bali. 42 years of asking the same question: where do I actually belong?
I tried to escape corporate many times. A bamboo house in Ubud managed as an Airbnb from Seattle across a 15-hour time difference. An eco furniture showroom nobody came to. Thai massage certification in Chiang Mai. A natural skincare line using 45% crocodile oil — not vegan, as it turned out. None of it stuck. But all of it was pointing somewhere.
13.4m². Paid off. Paris.
I had the apartment gutted, removed a 120-year-old plaster ceiling to gain a sleeping mezzanine, and ended up with a loft that works. No car. Metro pass. Top-notch affordable healthcare. A city built for joie de vivre. In early 2024 I moved in and made the dream a reality.
Now I show others how.
Not as an expat blogger. Not as a travel agent. As someone already living it — helping anglophones figure out whether France is actually possible for them.