One April day when I was in my early 20s, I got a call from my bureau chief at the magazine where I’d been working as a full-time freelance writer for more than a year. “You’ve maxed out your hours for the year,” he said. “They won’t reset until the end of August. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to find something else to do for the next few months.” I hung up, completely terrified. It wasn’t that I was worried about money; I’d been meticulous about saving as much as I could, and I had a decent cushion, plus I had steady work freelancing for two other magazines on the side. No, what terrified me was stepping off the treadmill. I’d become so accustomed to always scrambling for the next assignment, working overtime, and trying desperately to break the next big story that I had neglected to notice I wasn’t particularly happy. Later that day, still reeling and feeling like I needed to find something else meaningful, impactful, and important to fill in the next several months, I found myself on Mediabistro.com, a popular website for media professionals. I was there to look for temporary writing gigs, but instead, I found a posting from another writer in her early 20s, a young woman named Lauren (who later became an author, too!). Like me, she was in a bit of a bad spot; she had planned to spend the summer living and writing in Paris, but her intended roommate had backed out at the last minute. Now, she was just a few weeks away from heading off to France, and she was worried about how she’d sublet her second bedroom and pay the rent. She was hoping that, by chance, there might be another writer perusing Mediabistro’s site who had the last-minute flexibility to move to Paris through the end of August. I stared at the listing, which seemed like it had been custom-written for me. The room she was offering was only $600 a month, fully furnished, with all utilities included. Oh, and did I mention that it had a full view of the Eiffel Tower from the living room, kitchen, and bathroom? I didn’t speak French at all—my minor in college had been Spanish—but before I could stop myself, I clicked on the button to reply to her. “If you haven’t filled the spot yet,” I wrote, hands shaking on the computer keyboard, “I’m interested.” Four weeks later, I was living in Paris. I had only been there once, for a total of two days, on a family vacation. I had no idea when I lugged my suitcase up the five flights of stairs to see our apartment—and my roommate—for the first time, that Paris would climb under my skin and never let me go. I had no idea that that simple, spontaneous “yes” would change my life. But it did. That was the summer I realized that I had the right to slow down. I had the right to breathe. I had the right to ask myself what I actually wanted. And, as it turned out, what I actually wanted was to be writing novels, my lifelong dream, which I had temporarily put to the side as I strained and struggled to ace every magazine assignment I hungrily pursued. Most of all, I realized I had the right to be happy, even if happy didn’t necessarily come right away with money and success. And so I pumped the brakes. I didn’t slam them on all the way—I continued to write for magazines for another 10 years or so—but I realized it was okay to realign my priorities, and to stop and smell the roses, something the French are so good at underscoring. It was a lesson I had never really absorbed before. That’s the summer I began writing my first book, which I sold two years later. Now, almost two decades on, I frequently write novels set in France, from 2012’s The Sweetness of Forgetting, to 2020’s The Book of Lost Names. I write about the culture, the people, and the history of this country I fell in love with because I said yes on a whim. I realized later, after I had lived there, that my grandmother’s mother had lived in the very same Parisian neighborhood 80 years before I arrived, so I have to think there was perhaps a bit of a draw to France in my blood all along. It was always a part of me. But would I have discovered that calling without that fateful “yes”? I don’t know. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the power of saying yes to the things that don’t necessarily feel logical. Somehow over the years, I’ve mostly stopped doing that. I’ve returned to living on the safe side. I’ve forgotten that I have not only the right, but the responsibility, to leap without looking every once in a while. Life is a series of choices, of Sliding Doors moments that change our lives and our fates forever, but if we’re too careful—as I tend to be—sometimes those magical opportunities pass us by. Two weeks ago, on Friends & Fiction, the weekly web show I co-host with three fellow New York Times bestselling authors, my co-host, Mary Kay Andrews, talked about the Parade column she’d written recently about embracing change, and she asked our other two co-hosts and me, “How are you boldly striding into the future right now?” My answer was that I was reminding myself to embrace honesty, both with others and myself. I realized in thinking about it afterward, though, that it’s the latter that’s the hardest and the scariest. If we’re not honest with ourselves, though, how will we know it’s time to take a leap? How will we realize that our lives need a little shaking up? Nearly two decades ago, I found myself in a situation that scared me. That fear forced me out of my comfort zone, and that’s when I took one of the most important leaps of my life. I realize now that I need to do it again—not necessarily picking up and moving to Paris, but simply committing to being a little scared and jumping into the unknown once in a while. I think we all do. When we face our fears and admit that we don’t know all the answers, when we take a chance, when we leap from a precipice, sometimes the road rises up to meet us. Sometimes, it takes us someplace new. And sometimes, it turns out that the new path we find ourselves on is the road we were supposed to be walking all along. Catch up on all the Friends & Fiction essays here! Friends & Fiction is an online community, weekly live web show, and podcast founded and hosted by bestselling authors Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and Patti Callahan Henry, who have written more than 70 novels between them and are published in more than 30 languages. Catch them and their incredible author guests live every Wednesday at 7pm ET on the Friends & Fiction Facebook group page or their YouTube Channel. Follow them on Instagram and, for weekly updates, subscribe to their newsletter. Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Book of Lost Names, and The Winemaker’s Wife. Her novels are published in 29 languages. A former reporter for PEOPLE magazine and contributor to the national television morning show The Daily Buzz, she is the co-founder and co-host of the popular web series and podcast Friends & Fiction. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and KristinHarmel.com.
