How Heather’s Lonely Year at Uni Became the Springboard to Her Greatest Adventures

At age 25, Heather Lucas has already had the chance to call four different countries home. I met her in 2021 in France, when we both moved to Toulouse to do a month-long, intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) program. 

But that wasn’t Heather’s first time living in the south of France. She’d already spent three summers working as an au pair for a French family in Provence, making the bold decision to take a break from her studies when she found herself lonely and unsatisfied at university in London. 

Now living in Leiden in the Netherlands, Heather reflects with A Merry Loner about following her gut, embracing independence, and the incredible power of spending time alone.

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AML: Both times you came to France—for the TEFL program and to be an au pair for the first time—what was the reaction of the people around you when you made those decisions?

HL: Actually, the first time I au pair-ed was during a gap year that I had ended up taking between the first and second year of university. My first year of university, I went to Royal Holloway in London, and I studied European studies and French. And I thought that this was exactly what I wanted to do. But I was also quite young. I was 17, and I was moving to the other side of the country, away from my family and friends. That first year, I actually really struggled and didn’t find a lot of enjoyment in the course. I didn’t kind of get the fun of the proximity to London because, for the first semester, I was underage and a lot of friends were going out drinking. 

After a lot of decisions back and forth, and me privately going to see one of the counselors at the university and visiting their wellbeing center, I found out that I could transfer to another university. I was like: Oh, my gosh. I had no idea this was a thing. Yes, this is absolutely what I want to do. 

I had made all of those decisions and gone through that whole process on my own. I didn’t talk to anybody about it. I don’t know if I just felt like I was supposed to enjoy university, and then I didn’t, and I was like: Oh, no. What’s happening? I actually hadn’t really told anybody until it came to the final point of, okay, I’m transferring to Aberdeen in Scotland. But I made the decision a month after the deadline. That’s why I ended up taking a year-long break away from university. But it was the right decision, and I’m happy with the decision because that was what led to me au pairing. 

I would say that the au pairing had quite a strong reaction from my parents because they were like: What do you mean? You’re going to go live in France and look after somebody’s children for four months? And I was 19. I was old enough to make that decision but still young enough in their eyes. 

Some close friends were like, oh, my gosh—yes. This makes total sense with the French. So I think friends could kind of see the vision. But this was also one of the first times that any of us were spending time away from each other for such a long period of time. Although we’d been away for university in different places, I think maybe people’s first reaction was like: Oh, no. I’m not going to see you for four months.

AML: At both points, when you were in university in London and then when you moved to France to be an au pair, how did you feel about being alone in new situations for the first time?

HL: I think they both felt so different. Being at university in London, I did feel alone. I felt very much on my own. I’d made some friends who I’m still really close friends with now, but it was not so much of a friendship group; it was more of individual friends. This was different to high school, for me. That made me feel a lot more like I was on my own. And I think just the reality of university not being only this academic and education program but teaching you how to live on your own and sort of fend for yourself. It was balancing the academics and the social aspect of university—just trying to do it all on my own. That did feel quite lonely. 

But then arriving in France, I was just happy. I was like: This is exactly what I want to be doing. I was excited. You know when you know you’ve made the right decision? That was really what it felt like. It was just comfortable. When I arrived, the family met me at the airport, and then it was about an hour’s car journey back to their house. We were chatting away in the car, and I was like: Oh my gosh. I’m doing this. I’m speaking in French for a solid hour. And we found out that we had so much in common with each other, like our birthdays are the three consecutive days in the same month. This detail really stuck with me—it was almost like in that moment I knew I was doing the right thing.

I suppose because I was jumping in to be part of a family dynamic, that helped me not feel so alone. I had time on my own, which is something I do very much need for myself. But being part of their family unit, at that point in time, was something that I think I really needed—and not necessarily my own family unit. It was different, but it was good. 

AML: After that, when you went back to Scotland to finish university, how did that transition feel? 

HL: I went back to Scotland after having au paired, and I felt so much more confident. I would say confidence was really the thing that I’d been lacking in that first year in London. Going into the next three years in Aberdeen, I was confident in my abilities with French, and I was just also confident that I could socialize; I knew how to make friends which, again, is something that you don’t really think about going into university. But if you’ve just spent almost a decade at the same school, then that’s not something that you’re having to do over and over again because you have the same friends because you’ve grown up together.

I think I just felt like maybe it was a bit daunting because I knew I wanted to be serious about the studies and I wanted to do well. It was all internal academic pressure, but I’d kind of set that standard. The whole lifestyle stuff and being so