
Forgive my 3rd post today... I was originally planning on posting this one on Monday the 12th, because I thought THAT was the date of my one year anniversary of being in Paris. However, a friend just reminded me that it was really one year ago TODAY that I arrived!!! (Wow... so many milestones in the past couple of days: 1 month with Georges, yesterday. 100,000 visitors just minutes ago. And now THIS! I am going to drink some serious champagne tonight at the Bloggers' Bar Night to celebrate!).
It hardly seems possible.
One year ago, I came here with the goal of "trying it on for size", this living abroad in Paris thing. It is something I have been wanting to do my entire life, and I blogged about wanting to do it for 18 months before ACTUALLY doing it... but for too many years I had pushed that dream aside. Finally, I had to ask myself: "Will I regret it more if I do NOT do it?" And the answer was an immediate YES.
So, I found a place to live for the first few weeks, filled out some paperwork, and got on a plane. The first 5-6 weeks, it was mainly like being on vacation with a little bit of work thrown in. I wandered the city for hours, camera in hand. I was alone the majority of the time, except for an occasional Meetup.com drinks party, a weekend in London as the guest of a client, and a few days in December when a friend from home was here on business. I was alone, and sometimes frustrated with things like figuring out public transportation, but I was happy because I was finally HERE. Yes, I pinched myself regularly.
Then, a month back in the States over the holidays, while I waited for my long-term furnished rental to become available. Oh, that was a LONG month. Back here again in mid-January having sold my car and shipped over more of my "stuff", and also bringing with me a bout of bronchitis that slowed me down for the first few weeks. Still in working tourist mode though, for a good month or so, because I was only here a few weeks when my best friend came over for 10 days. More sightseeing, another hop to London, tons of fun.
After that, another few friends came through town as we headed from winter (unseasonably mild) into spring. Around that time, I started to realize I'd better get more serious about working if I wanted to STAY here, so I finally started to settle into a regular routine of working and socializing the way I would do if I lived anywhere, with the emphasis being more on the work part. Except I was living and working in PARIS, which was still completely cool to think about.
Another visit back "home" around Easter... and telling the family that in all likelihood I wouldn't be home again until Christmas (that didn't go over so well). I really wanted more time to immerse myself here, plus the cost of all that flying back and forth would cut into funds I wanted to use to travel around Europe more in the summer months.
Business started picking up fast after that. In fact, I now typically seem to have more work than I know what to do with -- I know, what a "problem" to have, huh? My social life also picked up fast; I started making more real FRIENDS instead of just random acquaintances from Meetup parties. I spent my 46th birthday in Provence, another dream come true. There were Blogger picnics and 14 Juillet picnics to be enjoyed, and even a trip to Disneyland.
July found me planning a lovely two-week solo train trip through eight cities in five countries... until bad news from home made me wonder if I wouldn't have to cancel those plans and possibly attend a funeral. But my grandmother stabilized, and I decided to make the trip anyway with the support of family back home who thought it was the right thing for me to do... although I was constantly checking up on her as often as I could, hoping for the best but prepared for just about anything. Still, that trip was a definite highlight of my year... I finally feel I can call myself reasonably "well traveled", even though there are so many other places to see on my "list". Right after that, I was already mentally planning a 4-5 day driving tour through southern England for October or even November, as part of some book research I wanted to do; plus, let's face it, I was dying to see Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon and some of the English countryside.
But life has a way of throwing you a curve now and then. My grandmother's situation worsened, requiring me to make an unexpected trip home to attend to some of her care-giving needs. The British driving tour would have to wait a little bit longer now. It was a long, tiring week, that NJ trip, but I accomplished everything I wanted for my grandmother plus a bit of fun and shopping for myself, and was extremely happy to come back to Paris. Seeing that Eiffel Tower lifts my spirits every time, even now. And for the first time, I started to feel like maybe Paris was really more of my "home".
I came back expecting to just go into my usual routine of working and spending time with the wonderful friends I'd made. Four days later, I "met" Georges online for the first time, and a few days after that, we met in person. All of a sudden... EVERYTHING changed.
I went from being someone who was still, even 11 months later, "trying Paris on for size", someone who loved it here but who still wasn't ready or willing to put down any real roots... to being someone who now knows that Paris, and France, is going to be my home for the rest of my life, because this is where Georges is. And THAT was definitely unexpected.
I never thought I'd end up with a Frenchman. Sure, OTHER people seemed to think I would, friends or acquaintances who had a romanticized ideal of Frenchmen, but who didn't realize I had some fairly negative experiences with them. So, falling for un vrai Français was the last thing on MY agenda. I thought, if anything, I might like to find another Anglo-expat who loved France as much as I do, and maybe THAT would be enough to cause me to want to stay for good... but at the same time I was already thinking of other options, other places I might like to visit or perhaps live. After all, I was "still single" and I definitely had the wanderlust as well as the means to be flexible in where I live and work, so why not explore the world a bit?
So the biggest surprise of all, of this entire year, was that at the end of it, I find myself in the deepest love I've ever experienced, and planning to build a future with someone in a way that was the furthest thing from my mind.
And yet... I couldn't be happier about having him in my life and the prospects of creating a life with him. I just accept that this is the way it is: HE is the man I want to be with, and he happens to have children, so he's a package deal. I embrace it, and I have no doubts about my ability to handle it, although it will take a lot of adjustments on everyone's part, over time, and I do not want to rush those adjustments. We've only been together a short time, and yes, there are so many unknowns ahead of us, things we have to learn and discover and decide and work out. Yet there is one thing that feels completely certain: France is now "home", because Georges is my home. He needs to be here, so this is where I will be, too. It's just that simple. Nothing more to discuss. And I'm thrilled... I mean, I already LOVE Paris. So this is not a hardship, the idea of building a life here, and with someone I love so much.
As I look back on this year, I am sometimes amazed even at myself, that I finally had the nerve to do this, and then even more amazed at how things turned out. There were things about this year that were sometimes hard, but overall it has been a dream come true and a mainly positive experience. I wouldn't change a single thing.
A friend asked me the other day if I thought I was different since coming to Paris. I had to think about that for a moment, because I felt the answer was both yes, and no. Yes, I am different in the sense that I think I see the world, and my place in it, very differently. I see myself as someone who can now handle anything, who is strong enough to choose a path in life when it is right for me, even if someone else is opposed to it. But in another sense, I do NOT feel that I am "different" because of Paris -- I feel instead that Paris has given me the gift of letting me FINALLY be the REAL me... the me I always felt like I could be, but who I was perhaps suppressing in the face of circumstances or by getting swept up in what other people needed or wanted.
This first year in Paris has not been about "finding" myself, so much as it has been about becoming reacquainted with myself again after many years of "hiding out". I am more myself here in Paris than I have ever been able to be, anywhere. Maybe this is why the right man and the right love has now come into my life... because I AM finally myself.
Now, as I move into Year Two... I am filled with eager anticipation, the kind of anticipation that comes when you have something wonderful to work towards -- and someone to share it with. Last year, my eagerness was all about the novelty of the experiences I was about to have, about discovering new places and maybe new parts of myself, but otherwise everything was vague, open-ended, very "I'll just figure it out as it happens".
This year, there is a direction. There are things I (and We) want to do, and this involves, for me, certain professional goals as well as the personal goals of creating a life with Georges and his kids. A year from now, I may not know exactly what everything will look like, but one thing is clear: I know who I'll be with, and I know where I'll be heading. It's a different kind of feeling, one I don't think I've ever quite experienced, having been living my life in the "make it up as I go along", be-free-at-all-costs mode.
I'll still be that way sometimes: flexible about things, loving spontaneity and variety, and still seeking to be "free". It's just that now, I'm redefining what that looks like. I can still be free in my soul, even while I'm choosing to merge my life with that of another person (or in this case, persons). It's a little scary, sometimes, but mostly... it feels fine and fantastic. It feels right.
It just shows that when you are brave enough to step out of your front door, you never know where you may end up. Oh, what a year it's been.