Why The Gap Decade Became We Became Hybrids

At first, I thought the book would be called The Gap Decade.

The idea came from the concept of a gap year—a chance to step away from everyday life, travel the world, and squeeze every drop out of a temporary sabbatical before returning to normal.

But the more I wrote, the more I realized that isn’t our story at all.

First, there was no rest.

We weren’t travelling through Europe or hopping from one country to the next. We were building businesses, raising children, learning languages, paying bills, renovating homes, navigating bureaucracy, and trying our best to become part of the communities we had chosen.

We didn’t visit France and Hungary.

We lived there.

We assimilated as deeply as we could, and somewhere along the way we changed. That’s why the working title eventually became We Became Hybrids. Somewhere between Canada, France, and Hungary, we stopped fully belonging to one place and became something in between.

Writing the book has its own challenges.

The woman writing these chapters at fifty-two has a very different perspective from the one who wrote those original blog posts between 2011 and 2021. It’s now been five years since we moved back to Canada, and the question I’m asked most often is:

“How are you doing back home?”

The honest answer?

Okay, I guess.

But life has quietly drifted back to where we left it before we moved abroad. Work. Routines. Small circles. Evenings in front of Netflix. A glass of wine to unwind. Comfortable, familiar, predictable.

Sometimes I miss the life we created in Europe more than I expected.

I miss wandering up to the square after dinner to meet friends without making plans weeks in advance. I miss swimming in our pool in southern France for much of the year. I miss looking up at nearly ten o’clock on warm summer evenings, watching the bats swirl overhead as the last light faded from the sky, knowing it was finally time to head indoors.

And Hungary…

I miss teaching.

It remains the only time in my life when work and pleasure felt almost exactly the same. I loved learning alongside my students and watching them grow into remarkable young adults.

I miss Angelina’s classmates. Daniel’s classmates. The children who came to us for private English lessons and the students I was lucky enough to teach year after year. Some of them stayed with me for the whole 5 years. Others graduated alongside Daniel.

Today, many of them have completed university degrees. A few are pursuing master’s programs or doctorates. Some now live and work in the United States or the United Kingdom, opportunities made possible in part because they mastered English.

Others still keep in touch.

They send updates about their lives, their careers, and sometimes even their university papers for me to edit. I smile every time an email arrives. The trust they place in me all these years later is one of the greatest gifts teaching ever gave me.

I also miss our friends in Capestang.

Especially this year.

Our dear friends Patrice and Marion are finally getting married after more than twenty years together. Last spring, while we were visiting, I jokingly told them, “Just get married already!” In France, inheritance laws and taxes can become surprisingly complicated for long-term couples who aren’t married, particularly when family estates are involved.

Apparently they took the advice.

They’re engaged. This weekend is their wedding ceremony!

Unfortunately, we won’t be there to celebrate. Alfonz has just opened a new motorcycle shop with his business partners in Parksville, and taking time away this year isn’t possible.

Moments like these make me realize that coming home wasn’t the end of our European story.

Those ten years didn’t just give us memories.

They reshaped who we are.

And perhaps that’s what this book is really about.

Not moving abroad.

Not buying a bed and breakfast.

Not homeschooling, teaching, wine tours, or House Hunters International.

It’s about identity.

It’s about discovering that after enough time spent between countries and cultures, you don’t simply return to the person you once were.

You become a hybrid.