2018

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On Leaving in 18 Days

Posted on Thursday, July 12, 2018

Right now is hard.
Right now is two-and-a-half weeks from the day I leave, 2,135 days from when I last hauled my life across the ocean, a night alone in my apartment after saying goodbye to the first colleauges over a few beers. Tonight is quiet, with a glass of red wine and the cat sleeping at the end of the bed and The National playing and tonight is a rare opportunity to take stock.

Are you wondering what it feels like to pack up everything and to bite the bullet and to just decide to go?
Here is what it feels like:
It feels like part of your heart is being pulled from inside you. It feels like you are leaving a part of yourself behind, it feels like you are closing the door on a chapter of your life, it feels like you are making a conscious decision to leave behind people and things and places that you have loved, very much. Because, well, that is what it is.
I got home today and the big tears that had been hiding behind my eyes all day, threatening to fall if anyone said just one sentence more, finally fell. Molly the cat was sitting on my chest as it heaved (until I sobbed just once too many times and she had had enough) and I lay on my bed and looked at the empty walls and thought about what I really am packing - slowly, but surely.
I am packing away a part of myself, a whole life I have lived alone for six years now. I am packing away the days where I do what I want, or I do nothing because I want to do nothing. I am packing away cooking for myself every single day, glass of wine in hand and music or podcast or movie playing, Molly at my ankles. I am packing away the glorious silence of living alone, but also the terrible loneliness that strikes when least expected.
I am packing away the things I've picked up over the years. I am not packing up the things I have given away: the shirt I wore for my 24th birthday which does not fit anymore, both in size and in everything else; Cards Against Humanity because it's too heavy and maybe we're all past that game by now; the glasses I picked up for ten cents a piece and loved but they'd just break anyway; the workout pants I wore for my first half-marathon and my second and my third. I am not packing the tiny oven that has served me so well, the one I got for free after seeing a Facebook post in a group at just the right time. I'll leave behind the tiny oven that has roasted chickens and late-night pizzas and re-heated McDonalds (because it's never hot enough once I walk it down from the closest one) and the first meal I cooked for my guy and a couple of Thanksgiving meals and the snacks I made for drinks with the girls and breakfast and lunch and dinner, day after day after day. The oven is too small and far too dirty at this point and I haven't used it lately because we have been having a bit of a heat wave, but it has worked hard and served me well and I will be sad to say goodbye to it, even though it might be the worst oven in the world.
I won't be packing the marks around this apartment of good nights spent here. The stains on the bathroom door can't come with me, the one that a friend made when, during a party, half of the handle fell off and he was locked inside for too long until we stopped laughing long enough to figure out how to open it. I can't take the marks on the floor with me, either. The spilled sauce and wine and water and, okay, the occasional tiny cat vomit when I give in to the cat's incessant begging and fed her a bit of chicken or yogurt or tuna. The floor that has seen the messes of the past three years must stay here.
I can't take the stupid clothes rack that I actually hate because it always seems like it might fall down, and it scratches the floor when I move it in the winter so that it's not directly in front of the heater. My clothes rack just has eight things left on it. I think that at one point, it might have had close to 80. After three years of picking what to wear to work, of finding the workout shirt that might look cool enough in spin class, of searching for the thing I might have lent to someone but I'm not so sure but I really can't find it right now, of finding something to wear on terrible date after terrible date until the right man came along.
I've lived in this little room - because it isn't more than a room, let's be honest - for three years now. So many days of looking around and seeing my things, the things I was given or I inherited or I picked out at a store or a market or a garage sale. And now, the clothes hanger is empty, the shelves are showing their dusty backs, the clutter is disappearing little by little. It's starting to look a bit sparse around here, and it scares me.

But maybe I'm silly to be scared. Because at the end of the day, what am I leaving behind? Just things. Luckily for me, the things that I actually need to take with me aren't things at all - they're memories, and feelings, and realizations, and truths. Lessons learned the easy way or the hard way. Mistakes, and triumphs, and all the tiny moments in between.
In 18 days, I'll be on the plane. Between now and then, every single day will be a great rush of trying to see everybody that I love here, trying to do everything that I love, trying to enjoy every moment as much as I can, trying to remember, remember, remember, and to never forget. I am already so exhausted and it is only the beginning of the end. I am trying to enjoy it all, the big things and the small. The tiny things are the best; the smell of flowers when I walk in the front door downstairs into the hall shared with the florist, the fact that a major current concern at work right now is how best to celebrate Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday, the "Salut!" from the barman at the café at the corner when I walk past, the cheese sections of grocery stores, every single interaction with friends, and the laughter, the laughter, the laughter.
I have been wanting to write more, because sometimes it feels like if I don't I might explode with everything I have been thinking. But how to find the time to write, between the bags to pack and the WiFi to cancel and the work to finish and the moments to enjoy? How do people remained balanced at times like these?
My mantra has been "keep your head down, and keep going" because if I think I stop too long I'll get overwhelmed and the quicksand will rush in and I won't be able to continue. So I'll keep my head down, and I'll keep going, and making "Blog Post Ideas" notes in my phone, and as soon as everything quietens down a bit I'll be back here to write it down so that I can remember, remember, remember.
It's not a simple time, but a change was more needed than I realized and so I will do my best to welcome the change, and focus on the positive, and keep moving forward. Bear with me. xx

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On Ugly Pink Bathrobes

Posted on Sunday, May 27, 2018

For as long as I've been here, or almost, I've been thinking about going home. Maybe not the first six or eight months, but after the first year it was definitely something that I considered. "A year abroad is nice!" I thought, and tried to see how it would feel to leave it at that. But life is funny and as I followed its twisting path I saw the years begin to pile up, two then three then four and five and soon six. The idea was always in the back of my mind though. I pictured a life for myself back at home, snowy winters and sweltering summers and being near friends and family and bagels. But it always remained a back-burner plan, something nice to think about but unlikely to actually happen... Until this year, when the back-of-the-mind part of the whole thing melted away, little by little, until suddenly it was very much at the front of my mind, and I knew that the decision was being made slowly, slowly, slowly somewhere inside me and that one day, unexpectedly, I would have made it without realizing.
That's how I found myself booking a ticket home one day a few months ago.
The weekend that I booked it, I cried a lot. Having an end date to the life that I've made over here feels strange and sometimes wrong and all the time scary and sometimes exciting. I haven't come here to write about it yet because it feels impossible to even try to find the words, but I think I have to start somewhere.
So I'll start here, on a sunny Sunday, sitting on my bed surrounded by heaps of clothes, trying to sort and organize and make lists and piles and plans. How do you pack up almost-six years of your life and move it all halfway across the world?
I've grown attached to the silliest things over the years. I have made my life here by myself, for myself, with no one but myself, and I think that this results in strange attachments to mundane objects.
My bathrobe, for example. Not the new fluffy one. The old scrappy pink one. I remember the day I bought it in 2012, taking the métro out to La Défense to visit the big Auchan store to stock up on cheap necessities for my closet-sized first apartment. Kitchen knives, tupperware, batteries, extension cords... And, a visibly cheap bathrobe. It felt silly at the time in such a small space, but when I saw it I knew I had to have it. It is bright pink, and feels and looks completely like it's made of polyster or plastic or, I don't know, worse, but I have loved it so well. The silly ugly robe has kept me warm on so many occasions over the years. Over sweatshirts and under blankets, hood up and belt pulled tight. I'd put it on when I got home from work in my first shoebox, I'd pull the space heater close to me and keep one hand in a pocket while I made dinner and tried to think warmer. In my big cherrywood four poster bed in the eighth, in my much nicer second apartment, I'd still wear it. A beautiful bedroom with parquet and a marble fireplace and a gilded mirror and a Juliette balcony, and this increasingly-threadbare pink robe that didn't fit in at all. Here now, in this third and last Paris apartment, is where I finally replaced it a few months back. (Before I knew there wasn't much point). I bought a new robe, a longer, softer, cozier, white one with a blue pattern.
I've still got the old one, though. It has hung faithfully on the back of my bathroom door, a reminder of all the other places it's been. It reminds me of cold nights in the 7th and the 8th, of lazy mornings making brunch and coffee, of the just-out-of-the-shower feeling that is so good no matter where you are. It reminds me of home.
Today I folded it up, fingering the ripped seams and the threads hanging from the belt loops and checking the pockets to see if I'd left something behind. It's in a black trash bag now, waiting to go to someone else or somewhere else. My heart feels really sad to say goodbye to it.
The pink robe won't be the last thing to make my heart lurch. As I continue to sort and sift and get my mind around the piles of things I've accumulated, I'm sure there will be many more similar moments. That's life, though, isn't it? Marie Kondo would be disappointed, but I truly wish I could take all the things that have been with me on this journey, and bring them to my next home.
I'll take some of them. I'll take the quirky flower pots that my mother and I carefully hunted out at country garage sales and antique stores. I'll take the leather bag that my dad and I got for 10 Euros, even though the salesman's wife wanted 40. I'll take the little white bowl with whirling dervishes painted on it that I bought on my solo trip to Istanbul. I'll take the blue and white china plates, the le creuset espresso mugs, the books that have changed me, the photos and prints and cards that have made me smile.  I'll take the jacket I wore when I ran the half marathon in freezing sideways rain a few years ago, the shirt I wore on my first day of work at Disney, the Ireland football scarf I got at the Euro Cup tournament. I'll take the tiger-striped cat.
The next few weeks promise to be emotional, and I think I'll be back soon as I try to work it out in writing or at least to record this time of great change. There is so much to look forward to, though I am leaving so much behind. Like the pink bathrobe, I'll be leaving behind little pieces of my story here and there, tied into bags and dropped off for somewhere and someone else. I'll miss that stupid bathrobe.
I think the bathrobes in America are pretty nice, though. xx

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On Not Running

Posted on Sunday, March 4, 2018

It's one o'clock on a rainy Sunday, and from somewhere in my building there's a smell of bacon wafting lazily through the air. (Though, ever the cynic, I'm thinking to myself "It's probably not even real bacon...", because after five and a half years in Paris, you know better than to expect real bacon). I've had an extremely relaxing weekend after a busy few weeks, and I've slept well and slept late and I feel good, my laundry is almost done in the laundromat around the corner and I've got plans to see a friend later and go to a movie. I've eaten a delicious brunch that I made for myself with the good whole foods that my body's been craving lately, the cat is purring next to me as I write this, and soon my phone will ring and my favorite voice will be on the other end, calling me sleepily from the east coast to say good morning. After the movie this evening, I'll come home and paint my nails and prepare my lunches for the week and, later, fall asleep tonight feeling rested and ready for the week.
It's been a nice weekend, but it's not the weekend I was supposed to be having, truth be told.
Today I was supposed to be running the half marathon, just as I've done three other years since being here. The first year, triumphant and with all the enthusiasm of a new runner's first race medal; the second year with my best time ever and a slight sunburn; and last year on a freezing day with sideways rain and water-logged shoes and a trashbag covering my torso but the satisfaction of knowing I finished and never stopped running for a second despite the wind and rain and cold.
This year, though, I'm sitting on an unmade bed, and smelling bacon, and listening to the Beatles, and feeling okay with not being there. Kind of.
Well, actually, I'm not really feeling okay with not being there, but I'm trying to let it go and learn from the experience - because isn't that what it's all about, really? When you're newly 28 but still trying to figure things out even though you thought you'd have done that already?
Do you really want to hear the excuses for not running the race? Well,  take your pick: Because commuting for three hours five days a week is tiring and getting up to run before or going to run after feels like the world's most impossible thing. Because it's been rainy and sometimes snowy. Because I haven't been getting to bed as early as I would have needed to. Because my morale has been low for a whole bunch of reasons. Because since late fall I've been on vacation or staycation or weekend trips that interrupt any kind of training schedule. Because my running shoes are shot and I haven't gotten new ones yet. Because because because.
I've been running for fourteen years now, but I've been the queen of procrastination even longer than that. Trust me, I know this excuse game all too well. There is nothing easier in all the world than finding a convincing excuse when the alarm goes off at 5:30 am and it's pitch black outside and there's a purring cat tucked under my arm. It's easy to choose to roll over and snooze the alarm and sleep for another glorious hour. It's easy to convince myself that I need to rest more than I need to run - when in fact the opposite couldn't be more true.

For years, it was easy for me to choose to get up, feet on the cold floor and too-bright lights flicked on and then out the door and thud-thud-thud on the dark pavement, dodging the last late night party stragglers and the trash collection men and the deliveries, soaking up the beauty of a Paris enveloped in black and then almost-grey until finally the day breaks and I'm approaching my front door and I feel invincible and strong and like I'm ready to take on my day.
I used to be that person. If i'm not that person any more, who am I now?
I've never really liked New Year resolutions. It all feels too rushed, Christmas comes and then it's New Year's Eve and then, usually, I'm trying to cram in as much as I can at home in the States before I shuttle back over here and between all the comings and goings it feels impossible to take a minute or two out to think about what I might really need for the upcoming year. So I usually prefer to make my New Year resolutions in my own "new year," on my birthday at the end of the month. But even there, this year, I fell short, and now all of a sudden it's the fourth of March and spring is around the corner and I'm not running the half marathon because I didn't take the time to do what I needed to do to get there. Doesn't that stink? I really think so.
This blog, as I think you know, has always been more for me than for anyone else, and I always wanted it to be honest - which is why entries are so sporadic. When I don't feel like I have something honest or worthwhile to write, I... Don't. Even if I don't know some of the readers as well as others, I'm here today presenting is my mea culpa: this winter I fell short, I missed the mark. Worst of all, I think, is that this all leaves me feeling disappointed in myself. Living alone, it's difficult to distract myself from my own thoughts. When those thoughts revolve around feelings of disappointment or "less than," it can bum you out pretty quickly.
Of course, I hope you'll have realized by now that I'm not this caught up over a stupid race. I've missed races before; missing a race is not the actual problem here. The problem is that among all the wonderful and exciting and sometimes-scary things that have happened this year, and all the wonderful and exciting and sometimes-scary things that I'm planning to do in the next few months, I lost the part of myself that made it all make sense. Those silent mornings in the darkness, the hard wake-ups, the good runs, the bad runs, the short and long runs... A whole part of my life has been missing for the past few months. But finally, I think I'm ready to get it back.
There have been lots of things going on for me lately, lots of decisions have been made and will be made and I spend a lot of my time thinking and planing and thinking, and somehow I let this be my excuse for snoozing the alarm - even though I know full well that there is no better place to think and plan and think than a morning run.
It's not January first, or even January thirty-first, but I've never been great at being on time. For now, I'll enjoy the rest of this lazy Sunday, and enjoy the sound of the rain outside and the feeling of being cozy in here. I really hope it stops raining overnight, though, because tomorrow morning I've got to go for a run. xx