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Thursday, May 15, 2014

"That's How You Know You've Really Got a Home... You Just Miss It."


So I was catching up on my American shows this week, when Once Upon a Time punched me square in the heart -- "That's how you know you've really got a home. When you leave it there's this feeling you can't shake; you just miss it."

Well if that isn't the story of my life. All week I've been reflecting on what it means to have a home, and where my homes are (and how fortunate I've been to be able to make myself a few different homes).

As I packed up my apartment, bit by little bit, I felt equal parts relief and sadness. Honestly, even though this year as flown by SO fast, and even though there were so many things that I didn't get to do while I've been here, I am ready to go back to Michigan. I feel like I've learned a lot this year, and maybe I've grown a lot too (and found some things that I need to grow a bit more in). It was a wonderful year. Wonderful, exhilarating, lonely and terrible all at the same time. I think most wonderful things are. You need the bad things to highlight the good; you need to learn your limits and to do that you're probably going to overstep them and it's going to suck (Geneva, I'm looking at you). Unlike 2 years ago, I'm ready to move on. I've got a new adventure waiting for me.

But leaving Dax was also incredibly sad. My little studio is the first home that I could call MINE. Sure, I've got a home in Michigan (which has less to do with the place, and more to do with the people). I've also got a home in Orléans. But the place I rest my head in Michigan is not mine -- it belongs to my parents. (Luckily they're pretty cool about letting me decorate my room and stuff, but it's still not really *mine*.) And the home I've got in Orléans belongs to my host family, not to me. Sure, I had dorm rooms at Central, but they were always shared. A compromise -- "I'll bring the futon if you get a TV".  But my studio in Dax was mine. My very first apartment; my very first home all to myself.

Honestly, I was not very excited about my apartment when I got to Dax. I don't know if I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but the first thing I did when I moved in was cry. I walked in, set my stuff down, faked smiles for the woman settling me in. When she left, I took one look around and started crying. My studio was NOTHING like what I had envisioned myself in. It was more a dorm than an apartment. I was 4000 miles from anyone I knew. I was completely and utterly and inescapably alone. And I cried for a good 10 minutes before picking myself up and getting stuff done.

I was not really happy about moving into the Résidence. It was so far from the center of town, I thought. Not charming. Not typically French. But at the end of the year, I don't think I could have made a better decision. The people who work at the résidence were unfailingly kind and welcoming -- right down to my very last minutes in Dax. Tuesday night there wasn't the typical atélier cuisine because they were showing the residents how to declare their income (for tax purposes). But when I asked about it, they decided to throw together a little dinner in my honor afterward. So Tuesday night I had a wonderful dinner with some of the workers and other residents. Wednesday, Alain drove me to the train station so that I wouldn't have to take the bus with all my luggage.

This year has been a lesson in life not meeting expectations, but turning out pretty awesome anyway. Having had friends who have done the TAPIF program, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how this year would go: I would have super motivated classes, I would spend the year eating baguettes and cheese, I would meet people who would become friends for life, I would live in a super chic little apartment and wake up to the smell of baking bread, etc etc. Life, I thought, was going to be GREAT.

Well, turns out none of that happened (okay, I DID eat a lot of baguettes and cheese). With the exception of a few of my younger classes, my students couldn't have cared less about learning English (some of them were pretty awesome anyway, some of them were little horrors about it).  Instead of really meeting people here (other than a few of the professors I worked with), I became closer with people back home.

Mostly this year has taught me to avoid expectations. (Or lower them, at the very least.) It's been a lesson of learning that I don't have control over everything (case in point: France's airline workers decided to go on strike today, so my flight to Dublin is delayed). It's been learning that being alone doesn't necessarily mean being lonely, and that being lonely is okay. It's been coping with big life decisions and doing what's best for me even when it hurts. Learning to let people go. Getting closer to people I love.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to come back to the States yet. Many of the other assistants are still here, traveling around the continent and generally having a blast. There are so many places that I still want to see (the blessing and curse of traveling -- the more you see, the more you realize there is to see). There's a part of me that wants to drop off my baggage in Michigan, stay for a few days to hug my parents and watch my mom graduate and then pack up my backpack and keep going.

But there's another part of me (the old-lady part, I think) that craves going home. I'm not as young as I once was (23 and SO OLD) -- my knees can't take the walking they used to (I swear I walked like 20 miles a day in Rome; now I do like 10 and am completely dead), living out of a backpack is less appealing, I get tired more, I'm learning to appreciate solo travel AND traveling with people (HOLLA to the best travel buddies: Vanessa and Melissa). Mostly I just want a solid home base. It's nice to come home to MY bed to sleep. As much as I dream about taking off and backpacking for a year or two, I'm not sure I could handle it. At least not yet. Maybe in a few years.

I think I'm ready for my next adventure. Or at least, I'm ready for a bit of calm before the storm. I've got two months to cuddle up with my mom and my cats and my puppy. Two months to pack up my life. Two months to brush up on some basic French grammar (irregular verbs WHY). And then it's on to Tallahassee.

It's time to make myself a new home. (And how fitting that it's Tallahassee -- the city two of my favorite characters from Once Upon a Time wanted to call home.)


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