Early July 2019 to late July 2019

At the end of June 2019, I had signed the last paperwork to purchase my apartment in Paris. By mid July I had moved in. I loved the apartment. It was very luminous. Almost bathed in light. It felt like a cocoon.

At work, the new office, which was by all standards exceptional, felt less attractive to me. Since I had started working, at the time more than 8 years back, the work offices had always been better than my home. High rent and low availability in Paris made it that way.

It was the first time, at age 32, that I felt better at home than at the office. It’s strange to realize this. All these apartments I had lived in since my university graduation had been cramped. It was strange to like being at home. One aspect of it was that it was close to the la Villette park in the north of Paris. In a corner of that park there is a horse riding school. I took horse riding lessons again. It had been nearly 10 years since the last time I had done that.

Riding horses again felt good. It was something I had always loved. I had stopped doing it during my early teens because I thought my parents couldn’t afford the equipment. Then, I rode again as a student with a friend. Then again at a stable in the Paris suburb. I’ve always had a special connection with horses. There is something with them that soothes me.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was reconnecting back in time. The process of looking back to unify my wavelengths was initializing. More would come later, this was the first step on my path. You can only live the present truthfully if you accept the past and look forward to the discoveries of the future.

At the time of writing, I realize I feel at peace with animals. Whether that is my cats, the horses, the wildlife, I feel a connection with them that I do not feel with many humans. With humans, there is an invisible distance.

I should say: I used to be an invisible distance. I learned later on how to navigate better human relationships. My wife, Djazia, has a very important part in this. Without her, I would not be the person I am now. I’m much better in my skin now. The cultural differences forced us to talk and explain and ponder. Between my double culture, French through my dad and American through my mother, and her being Algerian it was sometimes not easy. Understanding a different culture is not easy, you have to persevere. Essentially, both of us, at home like at work persevered to make things work.

I owe part of this to the people I worked with. I consider Théo (a) an équal, Arnaud (b) a patron, and Grégoire (c) a mentor. A new person was about to join the team. The second mentor I had at Scaleway.

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(a) Théotime Rivière, Storage Product Manager then, now Founder of Freedom From Scratch

(b) Arnaud de Bermingham, Founder and CEO of Scaleway at the time, now CEO of OpCore (datacenter focus spin-off of Scaleway)

(c) Gregoire De Turckheim, Manager of the hardware lab in season 1 & 2, now doing R&D at Scaleway

If you have missed it, you can read the previous episode here​

To pair with :

• Star signs - The Underachievers
• EAGAIN