(no subject)

[lesmisloony]

The last few days have been really tough.

I kind of wounded my back somehow about a week ago--my lower back, just at the base of my spine.  And ever since I've had varying degrees of shoulder and neck pain/stiffness.  This weekend I couldn't turn my head at all.  It's torture.  My host family is sympathetic and has put me on Doliprane, a French painkiller, but it only works like 70% and it also makes me really nauseous or... something I can't describe.

The worst thing is, every time I'm left alone with my thoughts they get really dark.  I think I am finally starting to look around me and see that my groupie days are over, my obsession with Patrice is over, and I don't know what to do anymore.  I don't know what I want.  I am looking forward to three things: Christmas at German Lara's house (next weekend), seeing Adam & Eve (in a little over a month), and 1789 (in less than a year).  After that... nothing.  It's like my life is a ten minute youtube video and it's only managed to buffer the first minute.  I don't know what to look forward to after that.  I don't have any career aspirations or anything.  Whenever I see how happy my host family is surrounded by family and life-long friends I ask what the hell I think I'm doing out here alone in a foreign country prowling around dating sites for company and texting people who don't feel the need to answer.  I love Europe and I love France and I love Paris, but I'm just getting so scared and so overwhelmed.  I don't miss the United States at all, but wouldn't it be easier?

I can't give up and go back, though, because here I at least have a plan for another year.  I submitted my TAPIF application and will find out what they say at the beginning of April.  Everyone who knows about the program assures me that I'll get Paris (or a suburb) since I have so much experience living here and speaking French and blah blah.  Plus I've found a program that hooks students up with a lonely old person with a huge house in Paris: you live in a spare room and pay something like €21 a month and all the old person asks is that you eat dinner with them and tell them about your day.  I LOVE old people.  That would be ideal for me as long as they found me a suitable geezer and as long as my person didn't DIE before our year was up.  I would even make an awesome PROFIT from TAPIF if I could do that!

If I went home... I have no idea.  I wouldn't be growing or moving forward.  I wouldn't know where to start looking for a job or future.  Literally, I wouldn't know WHERE to look.  My hometown?  My college town?  New York City?  Some random city I find by throwing a dart at a map?  No, at least here I have a path for next year.  At least here I CAN do stuff if I want.  At least here I have a place in society, even if that place has become slightly obsolete without MOR.

Anyway.  Scared, depressed, sore, unsure.  And sore.  REALLY sore.  I'm at a point in my life where for the first time mortality is really starting to scare me.

Also, I have found that I can no longer make ANY life decisions without running it by other people first.  Even my Sims game I screencap new developments so I can tell everyone (no one cares) about it.  I haven't started applying for the living-with-an-old-person thing because I haven't had enough friends encourage me to do so yet.  In any case I should probably wait till April, because if I don't get TAPIF then I'm going to have to stay with this host family for another year.

My sore back kept me indoors last Monday, and I skipped stagedooring La Chanson de l'Année.  I went for a few hours during the afternoon and saw Christophe Maé, Shy'm, Seal, and Bénabar going in to rehearsals.  If I had come back and waited to catch people as they left I could have seen the troupes of Adam & Eve and 1789.  I could have gotten flotos.  But I stayed here and laid across my bed and thought about how scared I was until I cried.

Comments

[heather e voltz (from livejournal.com)]

Are chiropractors a thing in France? Find one if they are, and if you can afford it, go. Seriously, even if your back feels better on its own, it could have mildly gone out, which will hound you later. Take it from someone who ignored a whiplash injury and lower back problem for a few years before getting treatment. And DON'T feel weird about seeing a chiropractor either, a lot of people do at first, but I LOVE seeing mine now.

And don't worry about the rest. Be as happy as you can every day and the future will work itself out. You're allowed to meander at this point in life, that's completely normal.

[yobambam666.livejournal.com]

I kinda see myself going through the same type of crisis in a few years when I graduate. I don't know what I want to do with my life, AT ALL. I don't have a job, and I don't drive, I don't really have friends that I hang out with... I just feel like I have no purpose, which is ok while you're in school, but I feel myself panicking at the thought of being done with my education and having to be a grown-up at last. It scares the shit out of me. I think you just need to find a best friend in France, so you can hang out and confide in that person and be reassured when you have freakouts and what-not. I think it really helps to have someone who is tangible that cares about you.

that stuff aside, I think the old-person idea sounds pretty good. As long as you get someone pleasant, and not some grouchy hateful person. Hopefully you'd get to meet the person before you got assigned or whatever. That actually sounds like potentially a very good idea. I mean, if you got the right person they could be like your own French grandparent who you can bounce ideas off of and get advice from. It could be pretty helpful for you... (Plus, it kinda seems like non-related grandparent figures are more helpful than real blood related ones... but that's just my experience...)

[angely78.livejournal.com]

Back pain sucks. Really, really really sucks. Trying to get it fixed sucks even more, but.... and this sounds depressing, but its true... it can be learned to live with, if you can't get it fixed. I live with it, and while it, as mentioned before, sucks, it can be done.

For the rest of it... give yourself time to find your balance. You have a little time; you're in Paris, you have a place to live, you have employment, you have food and such. Give yourself a break and it'll fall into place. You'll see. :)

kind of a late response

[melinann3.livejournal.com]

You'll find your way, do not worry. I know this is kind of late to reply, but I was looking through your old posts and this one just struck out to me. Even though you might not know what is in store for you in the future, don't fret about it. It'll be something worth looking for. You seem like a really nice, intelligent person and life cannot be unjust with you. Just keep faith, and everything will be ok.