My Baptist Years (4)

That's when I got a job as a secretary in a community etc - see "My Baptist Years (2) -

After a while I was advised to go to university if only to preserve my health security status. I went for English. I always loved English right from school. I enjoyed very much the cursus. Even got friendly with the English in to French translation teacher. But only attended the courses I really cared for and didn't do a bit of homework. At the end of the university year I only went for the exam of my "friend" teacher and didn't pass.

My Dad was in the D.I.Y. trade and had a shop in Pithiviers (it's roughly between Orléans and Paris). I asked him if I could work in his business but part time and not on Saturdays. Which is quite not heard of in this kind of job... But my Dad could hardly refuse me anything so he tailored me a position... Those 4 years (we're in 1984 by now) were quite happy. It was the 1st time I had my own flat, car and job... I got Wednesday afternoons off as well to go to see a psychotherapist in Paris. I was away most of the week -ends to the point that the Minister of the Baptist Church told me off for not being supportive anymore of the Orléans Branch. I was visiting other Evangelical Communities wherever I went, that's was my excuse ! I had join a choir, was visiting elderly people with a charity organisation, was learning the flute... Ah ! And yes I was working wasn't I ? My psychotherapist convinced me that the D.I.Y. business might be my call. This resolution didn't last very long. My Mum persuaded me to get ready for a competitive examination to work in a town hall. Hence I took on a correspondence course. I was quite relieved when I was told the following term than there was not any position available for at least a year...

Then Charlotte came along... I met Charlotte at a meeting held at the community near Orléans where I used to live before moving to Pithiviers. Charlotte found some of my medecine in the lounge of this house and shouted out aloud : "whose taking xxx ?" It turned out that she was on the same anti-depressing drug ! Amazing, wasn't it ? Charlotte was from a large family in the North and hadn't settled on any job or career yet. In the few months or so that we wrote daily letters to each other she looked after a retired priest in A. , was a nanny to a child with very serious disability near Paris... One day through the manager of the D.I.Y. shop I got her a job as a dentist assistant in Pithiviers. She jumped on the opportunity and found a small house to rent a few yards from where I lived. We were sincerely in love with each other but had decided to wait until getting married to have any sex. For obvious religions excuses : she being Catholic and me as you know...To be honest I was not attracted to Charlotte whatsoever. And I couldn't tell or even wouldn't probably looking on any sign on her part. The only shadow on our "happiness" was the fact that my Baptist friends disagreed fiercely that I was going out with a girl who was quite certainly "not saved"!

Nonetheless within maybe 2 years of knowing each other we decided to get engaged. Our parents talked to each other over the phone. Charlotte and I went in a monastery for a week-end to pray and think over our engagement. At the end of it Charlotte told me that after all she was not ready to get engaged. I was very disappointed. I could already see myself raising a family with her. A bit later we spent a week end in London together. It's there that I told her that I didn't want to be her boy-friend anymore because I couldn't cope with our religious differences.

In great part thanks to my psychotherapist I at least (I was 26ish) started to have relationships with men. And yes that's was definitively my call !