Thx! I left to find a job, originally in UK, in 1996. I was a programmer originally. Then I met my (French-in-the-US) husband on IRC, got married, and also moved to the US. Been there since 2001. Here I became a tech journalist, and then an artist (mostly collage art, where I had a very successful career in the 2010s – paintings/illustration are new to me).
The reason to come back I detailed in another reply here.