Missing Paris

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.

penpal

I remember the days when I used to have a penpal. It was an optional thing, a part of my French class. I am pretty sure my French teacher wanted us to sign up for a French penpal, but I didn't. I signed up for one from Malaysia because the Petronas towers had just been built, and they were the tallest buildings in the world and that country was suddently hopelessly cool in my eyes. I remember writing only one letter to him--the response I wrote to his first and only letter. It was a fascinating experience. I wish I still had that letter, but I don't. During a bout of frenzied cleaning I thew it away--apparently because it had little sentimental value to me at the time.

I recently checked out a book called 52 Projects--a book about projects and how they affect one's life. The projects are of all different types--anything from starting a stamp collection, to writing all of your old teachers and telling them what you remember about thier classes. I haven't officially started a project yet, but just reading the book gives me inspiration. I think getting a penpal would be fun. Having someone to share my experience with, and getting to share someone else's experience would be well worth my time.

changes

Life is funny. I don't know if it was ever understandable or chartable the way one can diagram a sentence. I do know that it certainly isn't that way now. I have been keeping a journal in some form or another for a long time. They haven't been consistant by any means. I remember one that I named Simba in honor of The Lion King and another one that I kept on my first computer when I was somewhere around ten. When I was a senior in high school, I started using xanga. Since then I have had a continuous journal. Five years of journals is nothing to scoff at, and I used to shun those who continuously switched from xanga to bloger to myspace to facebook. I kept up my xanga--mostly for nostalgic reasons. For me xanga was a form of solidarity in my life, coming around just after my mother died, when I learned the hard way the real meaning of loss and pain and emotional torment. For five years I have kept a semi-continuous record of my life on xanga, keeping every entry public for one reason or another. I decided today that it was time for a change.

It isn't that I no longer like xanga. I do, but I find it depressing that I am one of the final few holding on to a tool that few use. Anyway, in a few days I will be moving into a new apartment. In a little more than a month I will be heading into my senior year of college. For the past few weeks I have been researching graduate schools, scanning faculty lists, ordering books, and generally planning where I will be headed in a year. It is a time of change, and I am ready for it.

In the words of David Levithan, masterful author of Boy Meets Boy, "I find my greatest strength in wanting to be strong. I find my greatest bravery in deciding to be brave...If there's no feeling of fear, then there's no need for courage." I read that book a couple of years ago and have tried to keep that quote in my mind ever since.

Here's to jumping off the proverbial cliff without a parachute.