It isn't a sappy "Aw, wish I were back there," but rather a deep and hollow pain that starts in my chest and radiates outward until my upper arms are numb and I am dizzy and short of breath. It happens every time I open up a photo album and see all the friends I made in Paris--the friends that I am no longer in close contact with. I see them smiling and the backdrop isn't a Jacksonville bar or some lame party, it is the grand canal at Versailles or the crowded caves of Bar Trois. It just makes me think.
Somewhere along the line--probably when I was in Paris--I forgot how damn lucky I was to be there. It isn't that I have tons of regrets, but I do wish I had lived every day there like I was the luckiest kid on the planet because that is how I feel when I look back. I feel that if I hadn't taken it so much for granted I wouldn't feel so much of this pain and sadness now.
I could say that hindsight is 20/20 and not be lying, but I also wouldn't be hitting the truth on the head. That paltry little phrase doesn't take me back to Paris and it certainly doesn't give me any comfort when I start feeling this sappy. Paris was something I prepared for for more than a year. I spent more than a year of my life pumping myself up so I would have the courage to step onto the plane and in the end--I did it. I have immense satisfaction that I did it, but also immense sadness that a year and a half of preparation ended in four months--four months filled with more turbulent emotion that should be physically possible.
I guess that is it. I am not ready to deal with that emotion--or the magnitude of that emotion.
