My heart's far, far away...
Jul. 25th, 2011 02:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesmisloony I think I've figured it out. Every time I talk to my mother I end up crying about how miserable I am when I'm not *that* miserable.
Well, I won't be back in France before September 12th, but since I plan to stay this time, I guess I'll do what I can to take advantage of my last month or so here in America. Of course, if I was in France that would mean visiting museums and historical sites I'd neglected or checking out shows I'd passed up. Here that means... um, I don't know, eating Papa John's pizza and Kraft mac and cheese, I guess. I'm kind of over my addiction to ranch dressing. Maybe I should get ready to bid skim milk farewell too since I never really drank much of it when I was in Paris. It cost too much and the fact that it sat out on the shelf without being refrigerated still weirds me out.
I'd say that also means saying goodbye to my friends, but I can't help but notice that a whole lot of them haven't made any effort to reunite with me since I got back. Some of the people who trolled my facebook all year telling me they missed me can't be bothered to drive their asses over here and say hi. Okay. Hope I see them before I take off again, since from this point forward if all goes well they won't see me anymore unless they come visit Paris.
Seriously. I'm going to do everything in my power not to come back. Unless of course I find out I hate France when MOR is gone, but... well, I don't know. We'll see. Let's just say I kinda doubt that'll be the case.
I could have gotten used to America again, but I didn't give it the chance because I saw myself slipping back into my old habits and my old self-doubts and my old miseries. I can't have that. I was almost *there* before I left France. I was almost happy with myself for the first time in my LIFE.
Yesterday I was driving between my parents' house and my apartment and I asked myself whether I was going to or from "home". The answer was neither. In the apartment I feel trapped by the humidity, the lack of transport, and the lack of anywhere to go. In the house I feel completely suffocated by my parents and by the ghost of the judgmental child I used to be. If these aren't it, I asked myself if "home" was the yellow garret room in Bois-Colombes, but it couldn't have been. I was always so quiet and withdrawn there, terrified of disturbing the family that was good enough to house me. That was when I realised: "home" was freezing my ass off or getting sunburned in the midst of a crowd of girls my age whose parents were (mostly) nowhere to be seen, girls who knew the difference between Corentin and Guillaume and thought Patrice Maktav's behaviour around me was remarkable, girls called me "l'Américaine!" or, even better, "la fan de Patrice qui tricote!" and asked me how many French swear words I'd learned and how their names would have been pronounced in English. Approaching the hotel after some kind of harrowing journey on foot and hearing people cheer when they saw me arrive or run out to hug me and bisou me was almost as good a feeling as rapidly telling someone why Patrice was the nicest man ever in French and hearing them respond, "Mais ça c'est juste avec toi, il n'est pas comme ça avec les autres!" Home is unlocking the door to my hotel room and flinging myself onto the massive bed for the first time, spending all morning rolling around in the big bathtub or all afternoon dancing as hard as I can to my iTunes. I don't even have to mention the way Florent Mothe's face lit up when he saw me or Mikele's lifeless, glittery stares and never-ending hugs.
Home was being a MOR groupie, and that's gone. When will I feel at home again? Maybe it'll be in my little flat next door to my new host family. Maybe I'll find some kind of Frasier-esque café where I can spend my mornings waiting for class to begin. Maybe it'll be years from now when I have a steady job and am paying rent on an even tinier flat somewhere near Paris. I don't know. So I feel so strange because, for all intents and purposes, I'm kind of homeless. The best thing I have right now is you guys, tumblr and the Florum.
I tried to express this to my mother on the phone and she picked out random details of what I was trying to convey and tried to suggest ways to correct them. She told me to make new friends, hang out with my coworkers, go to hipster concerts at bars, try to identify with the people around me. Every time she did that I felt like she was undermining my problems, like she was telling me that it wasn't so bad and it was my own fault I was unhappy, so I'd bring up something else that I didn't like about my life and the whole thing would start again. The more I told her about things that made me unhappy, the unhappier I became until I couldn't keep myself from crying. I don't want her to tell me what I *should* do, I want her to commiserate with me over what I've lost. My friends understand that, you guys understand that, so why can't my own mother? She also has a defense mechanism wherein she turns things around to keep them from being her fault, so I often feel attacked by the way she words things. I feel like she accuses me of being judgmental all the time and she constantly says things about how *I* think poorly of *her* which beg me to correct her and tell her how great I think she is. If I complain about something someone did that seemed closed-minded she'll say, "Now that sounds judgmental." Then I was telling her that of all people it's Anais who has sent me the sweetest messages of encouragement and she said something about random like "What does that tell ya?" and I said "Huh?" and she admitted that she wasn't listening. Then she asked me if I want to get counselling. She tells me that internet friends aren't real friends and I'm only comfortable with them because I don't have to talk to them face-to-face.
I *know* I talk too much about myself and don't listen enough, she has made that EXCRUCIATINGLY clear to me in my life. Because of her I always feel incredibly guilty whenever I'm spending too much time harping on about my time as a groupie, recounting my adventures or whining over how much I miss Patriiiiiiice. It's probably good that I'm conscious of this because there are plenty of people who don't want to hear it, but it also makes me ashamed of my desire to jabber on and tell my stories over and over. I HAVE REALLY GOOD STORIES DAMMIT. And I need CONSTANT validation.
I am not a miserable person. I am an incurably cheerful person. When things are bad I make a mopey post about it here on lj and then within a day (or two if it's REALLY bad) I do my best the focus on the good or to move on.
I tried to explain to my mom that it's good for her that she found the right guy while she was in college, then found a job in which she was happy, then got married, then had kids, raised them up, retired from the same job, and can now sit around doing nothing or whatever, but she needs to understand that the world isn't like that. She needs to understand that there are some people who don't meet "Mr Right" before they've had sex, there are some people who don't know what job they want, there are some people who don't want to be retired and have no goals for the rest of their life. I told her that I am no longer proud of my sheltered childhood, that I feel like I missed out by not learning how to socialise normally (ie go to a bar or a club) and never watching the shows or listening to the music that defined the childhoods of so many of my friends. She glibly replied that I could go to a club right now if I wanted, I was just saying that because I didn't want to leave the computer. Okay mom.
I don't care about my crazy-ass childhood "values" anymore, even the ones that I held up until a few weeks ago. I don't care about the integrity of dying without ever tasting alcohol or "saving yourself" for some magical prince charming or not even knowing what different drugs looked or smelled like if I were to ever encounter them. I wasn't being "good" by avoiding all of this in high school, I was limiting myself because I was afraid the "cool" groups who were blundering their way through these things wouldn't accept a tubby dork like me. It never had anything to do with Christianity or values, it had to do with fear. But I learned to stop being scared this past year, and now that I'm ready to stumble out into the world and learn how to socialize, experience things and figure things out and learn through trial and error how I want to conduct myself, I'm geographically back in the place where I had surrounded myself with people who saw the world the way I did, people who had built walls around themselves too.
Wake up, guys. This is probably your only life. Try the weird green fruit with the mayonnaise on it. It might be the best thing you ever tasted, and, better yet, it might be good for you.
Well, I won't be back in France before September 12th, but since I plan to stay this time, I guess I'll do what I can to take advantage of my last month or so here in America. Of course, if I was in France that would mean visiting museums and historical sites I'd neglected or checking out shows I'd passed up. Here that means... um, I don't know, eating Papa John's pizza and Kraft mac and cheese, I guess. I'm kind of over my addiction to ranch dressing. Maybe I should get ready to bid skim milk farewell too since I never really drank much of it when I was in Paris. It cost too much and the fact that it sat out on the shelf without being refrigerated still weirds me out.
I'd say that also means saying goodbye to my friends, but I can't help but notice that a whole lot of them haven't made any effort to reunite with me since I got back. Some of the people who trolled my facebook all year telling me they missed me can't be bothered to drive their asses over here and say hi. Okay. Hope I see them before I take off again, since from this point forward if all goes well they won't see me anymore unless they come visit Paris.
Seriously. I'm going to do everything in my power not to come back. Unless of course I find out I hate France when MOR is gone, but... well, I don't know. We'll see. Let's just say I kinda doubt that'll be the case.
I could have gotten used to America again, but I didn't give it the chance because I saw myself slipping back into my old habits and my old self-doubts and my old miseries. I can't have that. I was almost *there* before I left France. I was almost happy with myself for the first time in my LIFE.
Yesterday I was driving between my parents' house and my apartment and I asked myself whether I was going to or from "home". The answer was neither. In the apartment I feel trapped by the humidity, the lack of transport, and the lack of anywhere to go. In the house I feel completely suffocated by my parents and by the ghost of the judgmental child I used to be. If these aren't it, I asked myself if "home" was the yellow garret room in Bois-Colombes, but it couldn't have been. I was always so quiet and withdrawn there, terrified of disturbing the family that was good enough to house me. That was when I realised: "home" was freezing my ass off or getting sunburned in the midst of a crowd of girls my age whose parents were (mostly) nowhere to be seen, girls who knew the difference between Corentin and Guillaume and thought Patrice Maktav's behaviour around me was remarkable, girls called me "l'Américaine!" or, even better, "la fan de Patrice qui tricote!" and asked me how many French swear words I'd learned and how their names would have been pronounced in English. Approaching the hotel after some kind of harrowing journey on foot and hearing people cheer when they saw me arrive or run out to hug me and bisou me was almost as good a feeling as rapidly telling someone why Patrice was the nicest man ever in French and hearing them respond, "Mais ça c'est juste avec toi, il n'est pas comme ça avec les autres!" Home is unlocking the door to my hotel room and flinging myself onto the massive bed for the first time, spending all morning rolling around in the big bathtub or all afternoon dancing as hard as I can to my iTunes. I don't even have to mention the way Florent Mothe's face lit up when he saw me or Mikele's lifeless, glittery stares and never-ending hugs.
Home was being a MOR groupie, and that's gone. When will I feel at home again? Maybe it'll be in my little flat next door to my new host family. Maybe I'll find some kind of Frasier-esque café where I can spend my mornings waiting for class to begin. Maybe it'll be years from now when I have a steady job and am paying rent on an even tinier flat somewhere near Paris. I don't know. So I feel so strange because, for all intents and purposes, I'm kind of homeless. The best thing I have right now is you guys, tumblr and the Florum.
I tried to express this to my mother on the phone and she picked out random details of what I was trying to convey and tried to suggest ways to correct them. She told me to make new friends, hang out with my coworkers, go to hipster concerts at bars, try to identify with the people around me. Every time she did that I felt like she was undermining my problems, like she was telling me that it wasn't so bad and it was my own fault I was unhappy, so I'd bring up something else that I didn't like about my life and the whole thing would start again. The more I told her about things that made me unhappy, the unhappier I became until I couldn't keep myself from crying. I don't want her to tell me what I *should* do, I want her to commiserate with me over what I've lost. My friends understand that, you guys understand that, so why can't my own mother? She also has a defense mechanism wherein she turns things around to keep them from being her fault, so I often feel attacked by the way she words things. I feel like she accuses me of being judgmental all the time and she constantly says things about how *I* think poorly of *her* which beg me to correct her and tell her how great I think she is. If I complain about something someone did that seemed closed-minded she'll say, "Now that sounds judgmental." Then I was telling her that of all people it's Anais who has sent me the sweetest messages of encouragement and she said something about random like "What does that tell ya?" and I said "Huh?" and she admitted that she wasn't listening. Then she asked me if I want to get counselling. She tells me that internet friends aren't real friends and I'm only comfortable with them because I don't have to talk to them face-to-face.
I *know* I talk too much about myself and don't listen enough, she has made that EXCRUCIATINGLY clear to me in my life. Because of her I always feel incredibly guilty whenever I'm spending too much time harping on about my time as a groupie, recounting my adventures or whining over how much I miss Patriiiiiiice. It's probably good that I'm conscious of this because there are plenty of people who don't want to hear it, but it also makes me ashamed of my desire to jabber on and tell my stories over and over. I HAVE REALLY GOOD STORIES DAMMIT. And I need CONSTANT validation.
I am not a miserable person. I am an incurably cheerful person. When things are bad I make a mopey post about it here on lj and then within a day (or two if it's REALLY bad) I do my best the focus on the good or to move on.
I tried to explain to my mom that it's good for her that she found the right guy while she was in college, then found a job in which she was happy, then got married, then had kids, raised them up, retired from the same job, and can now sit around doing nothing or whatever, but she needs to understand that the world isn't like that. She needs to understand that there are some people who don't meet "Mr Right" before they've had sex, there are some people who don't know what job they want, there are some people who don't want to be retired and have no goals for the rest of their life. I told her that I am no longer proud of my sheltered childhood, that I feel like I missed out by not learning how to socialise normally (ie go to a bar or a club) and never watching the shows or listening to the music that defined the childhoods of so many of my friends. She glibly replied that I could go to a club right now if I wanted, I was just saying that because I didn't want to leave the computer. Okay mom.
I don't care about my crazy-ass childhood "values" anymore, even the ones that I held up until a few weeks ago. I don't care about the integrity of dying without ever tasting alcohol or "saving yourself" for some magical prince charming or not even knowing what different drugs looked or smelled like if I were to ever encounter them. I wasn't being "good" by avoiding all of this in high school, I was limiting myself because I was afraid the "cool" groups who were blundering their way through these things wouldn't accept a tubby dork like me. It never had anything to do with Christianity or values, it had to do with fear. But I learned to stop being scared this past year, and now that I'm ready to stumble out into the world and learn how to socialize, experience things and figure things out and learn through trial and error how I want to conduct myself, I'm geographically back in the place where I had surrounded myself with people who saw the world the way I did, people who had built walls around themselves too.
Wake up, guys. This is probably your only life. Try the weird green fruit with the mayonnaise on it. It might be the best thing you ever tasted, and, better yet, it might be good for you.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-25 02:02 pm (UTC)In Europe, people don't move that much. Lots of people I know will spend their whole lives in the same house. Everybody here is so fixed to one place it's almost scary. I think that's one of the reasons people are so unhappy. Sometimes you just have to leave everything and get yourself to the right side of the ocean to feel like your life means something.
Never feel bad about talking about your adventures or about yourself. I like reading what people write because it usually makes me less lonely. It's a message to everyone: "we all start with this miserable something and it's entirely up to us what we make of it".
Parents tend to guild-trip a lot. The reason my mother doesn't like me is simple - I don't fell for all the emotional blackmailing. And yeah, you could do lots of things if you wanted but they wouldn't be the same like they were for other kids. Our perception changes and the feeling would be different. "You can do it now" isn't gonna change the past.
"This is probably your only life." sounds very much like "After all, you only die once." and I like it. Good luck with finding a place that feels like home *hugs and cookies*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-25 10:20 pm (UTC)This is the most important thing! Because this is what makes everything possible. "Home" may not end up being in Paris, or anywhere in France: it'll be the place you end up because Paris got you there. Because as you've figured out, it's as much a state of being as it is a place.