Language Barrier

To be honest, though my Parisian life feels crowded with my daily errands and meetings and events, the vast majority of my time revolves around trying to learn this Godforsaken language. It is...challenging, to say the very least. I told someone today that "I don't think any single activity has induced as much self doubt as learning French." Which is probably true, but I'm actually not sure that it's fair to classify this immersive project as one singular activity. It kind of feels like I've taken ever aspect of my life and rotated it 90 to 180 degrees, which is a dizzying prospect to consider. So on top of spending hours a day in class and hours after class writing compositions or reading free newspapers or listing conjugations, I attempt to take advantage of every opportunity to practice my "French." I say "French" because even after 6 months of intense study and for no lack of effort on my part, I think that when I speak, even with a generous estimate, it only comes out as intelligible French about a quarter of the time. Sometimes it's franglish. Sometimes it's nonsense. But I'm trying. 25% of 1000 phrases a week is a lot more than 25% of 100.

So here I am, running full speed towards an illusive barrier. And this is still the grammar/vocab/conjugation/word order barrier. The thing that makes it so much harder (and it sounded so easy to start with, right?) Is that beyond this 5 story high steel force field is not, in fact, an open French meadow of lavender and bottomless onion soup. It is a 1.5 foot wide trap, enclosed on the other side by a bullet proof glass barrier that is so clear it appears to not even be there. This is the language barrier of which I will write today. The cultural language barrier. The wall that I fear I will not, or even more depressingly, potentially cannot be crossed.

I had a very good childhood friend visiting me this past week, and i was surprised to find that despite the fact that we could have both medaled in the sarcasm Olympics in our earlier days, nearly everything she said, nearly every joke she made, went completely over my head. Like I'm not talking I lunged and it was beyond my grasp by an inch. I'm talking I was in the nosebleeds behind home plate and she hit a homer out of left field. Like no register. No connection. How could something that once came so naturally be so completely foreign now? (And I'd like to take an opportunity to issue a formal apology to all of those whom I have upset or made uncomfortable with my sarcasm. Trust me. I get it now.)

And then, catching up with a friend on fb chat, she made an allusion which completely eluded me, which she explained only by saying that "oh, how funny, you don't get it because you're not here!" Which did not sit too well with some bubbling homesickness.

This is all just to say that as I walk down the infinitely long road towards French fluency, I walk farther and farther from the cultural component of English. It's kind of infuriating, but mostly because I know that I'm in no place to be compensating with French cultural fluency. Will I ever understand a french joke without a 5 minute explanation?

And I feel like I have enough of those anecdotes to fill a book, much less a blog post. But I'll treat you with an overarching and positive one: when I first met my now-landlady, she was a little cold (by American, not French standards). This is back when I could only say "bonjour" et "chic" et "un petit chien," all of which you can imagine are very useful in everyday Parisian life. Jokes. Anyway, fast forward three months, I can string a sentence together, however tenuously, and she gives me crème brûlée on a regular basis and we share our coffee and she talks to me about her country home and teaches me the word for wheelbarrow...in short, she likes me. She told me to tell the French bureaucrats that I am her American cousin if they gave me any trouble. 

Umm, what? We're family? We went from you not saying hello to me to being family? And while the French are notoriously moody, I think there's a bit more to this swing. I speak French, now! And despite the fact that I know that it's not very good, Liz complements and encourages me. She switches to English if she thinks I haven't understood. She teaches me phrases that I never would have learned in class. All because I can conjugate in the present tense! C'est un miracle, vraiment.

In reality, there is much more to the cultural language barrier, especially in French where the written and spoken forms are practically two languages. Slang and tone and double entendres can still elude me. But this idea, that we change, that we open up, depending on what language we are using, is fascinating, and also lasting. It's an "in," so to speak. It's a shared hobby or interest, a favorite film that you have in common. But it's also so much more, because it's not tangential or fleeting, but rather...your whole life. I don't know how else to describe it besides saying that it's the light at the end of this tunnel, and also the bane of my existence. 

Mais, c'est pas grave. 

Joyeux Thanksgiving!

There's obviously no standard french thanksgiving greeting, so I went with that. If you disagree, I don't really care.

Hi! I had the intention of posting something much sooner after the fact, but my Parisian Thanksgiving was so lovely and lasting that I feel as though I've only just recovered. Thanks for understanding. It was an adventure for sure. Something between an elaborate scavenger hunt, a chic soiree, and a money bonfire. Seriously, draw a triangle between those three points with convex, zig-zagging lines, and you'll get a pretty good idea. I did not buy a 100 euro Turkey complete with gobbling neck and tail feathers. I did buy a 29 euro pumpkin pie. This is just to give you a general sense of how Turkey day goes down here, which is to say with great cost.

So I'm very lucky. I have a lovely/brilliant/social Canadian/Chinese/American classmate who volunteered to host a few us at her host family's home for a very close approximation of American Thanksgiving. I'm going to say that the only missing components were unlikable relatives and an early start time. We are in Paris, after all. So, I spent La Fete du dinde with a few classmates, and my host's other awesome American friend and awesome host sister...did I use awesome enough?

I fear that you'll think someone else wrote this. It all sounds a bit too upbeat to be me. But I swear, It's me! Thanksgiving has never been the most meaningful holiday on my Calendar. I don't have a large extended family, and what I know I don't necessarily like (aaaand she's back) and the Thanksgivings of my childhood were spent/are remembered as pin-balling between my mom's relatives year to year, where they demonstrated their hospitality in ways varying from having us child gremlins eat in the basement so as to avoid soiling the white carpet ranging to refusing to prepare to make a kosher Turkey for my family. In short, the alleged sense of cooperation and familial love were notably lacking.

The food also didn't do much for me. Until well in to my teens I hated all sauces: dressing, ketchup, thick soup...it was all terrible. And the dry base of thanksgiving is really only made edible by the various gravies and goos. And I think we can all agree that Turkey is just the worst. When do you ever go to a 5 star restaurant and see Turkey on the menu? Oh, what's that? Never? Right, because it's completely devoid of any redeeming culinary qualities.

So this is all to say that by the time we made our family friends' meal our annual tradition, there was little sentimental significance to be gleaned. And then college came, and I went 3000 miles away, and having no idea how home sick I'd be we all decided that I didn't need to come home for Thanksgiving. Which was no big deal. I went to the home of a family friend whom I'd never met before. And it was actually really nice. She served cornbread (my favorite!) in terracotta pots. 10 for plating. And I met new people who I liked to varying degrees and had a lovely day. And then every other year brought some entertainingly new and non traditional solution. The change and surprise became a tradition unto itself, and I'll admit it was infinitely more enjoyable than my sister criticizing what I was wearing while trying to chew through the driest poultry known to man.

And, in that way, this Thanksgiving was no different. It was an opportunity to celebrate this Parisian moment in my life and these new people that I have the opportunity to get to know and eat the classiest potluck of food my palette has ever come in contact with. In short, it was a real opportunity to give thanks. It was easy to be aware of my situation (the contrast to last year could not be more clear) and it was so...pleasant, truly delightful, to spend upwards of 7 hours with a group of people who I really only have two things in common with:

1. We're in Paris
2. We celebrate Thanksgiving

And with a holiday that can so easily be corrupted by parades and Disney and football and Walmart, how wonderful is it that I got this opportunity to acknowledge what I share with these other people. It really should be a holiday that celebrates what we have in common, and nothing makes this more clear than being so far from home. A sense of belonging is definitely something to be thankful for, and french red isn't too bad either.

A Great Miracle Happened Here

Hi. I've kind of been a mess these past few weeks (in that I'm doing more social things and I'm still adjusting to being in class until 6:30 two nights a week, NOT that I'm in any kind of dangerous head space) so this post is going to be about thoughts that have been stewing for a few weeks, maybe even months? Maybe even my whole life, who's to say.

So the first outdated piece of the puzzle comes from a few weeks back when I had a French breakthrough. The final installment in our first round of presentations, in which we had to present our passion, was a topic right up my alley: a discussion of the history of Asian immigration to the U.S. and a discussion of contemporary Asian-American culture. (I am very interested in immigration and, more specifically, the Venn diagram of identity presented to immigrants and their children.) Anyway, not the point. An "often-wrong-never-in-doubt" type in my class (I guess in an effort to show how aware he was of current events in France?) broke our discussion of Asian-American acceptance in the U.S. to ask our professor about antisemitism in France, which quickly devolved into chaos by means of a few powerfully mal-chosen mots. He has a tendency to confuse dissimilar things, like when he confounded Arabs and Muslims. This time he called antisemitism racism, and then tried to save himself be shouting at us that he has Jewish blood. And, by some veritable miracle, my bubbling fury at the Nazi era classification was funneled into patient, coherent, thoughtful French...it's several weeks later and I can still hardly believe it happened.

"No, your blood is the same as her blood is the same as her blood. In Eastern Europe they may use the word race to describe a part of your heritage that you don't otherwise have a word for, because it no longer functions as your religion, but it's incredibly offensive, and loaded, to call Judaism a race. Because it's not." (because race is a social construction, but even working from that point, Judaism wouldn't be a race) It was a bizarre moment, both because I suddenly had the ability to express my fury in French and because I couldn't believe that someone would take offense to something as scientifically empirical as the fact that Jews are not a race. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT I AM!" he shouted irrationally in English...fair. But also, I can. Because you can call yourself anything you want, but that doesn't make it true.

For kristallnacht a few weekends back I spent Sunday afternoon at the Shoah museum here with a mixed group and a free guided tour which I would have happily paid for. He was excellent, particularly in that he was clearly impassioned by his work. I'll skip the first 2.5 hours to when the American couple left. They were the only anglophones on the tour (besides me) and they gave me a very clear sense of what it means to be an American tourist. They were New Yorkers with a certain audacity, not that they thought the world belonged to them, but they seemed to have a sense that they only had to ask, which is so markedly different from the social isolationism of France that I can't even get in to it. Anyway, they were VERY interested in our French guide's perspective on current anti-semitism in France, which he was willing to give in private but reluctant to give in front of the group, primarily because it's not at all the purview of a  holocaust historian and (as he revealed to the group after the New Yorkers left) because there is such an irreconcilable difference between the Anglophone and Continental concepts of religious freedom and religious tolerance.

In the U.S. it's all about being free to openly practice whatever religion you choose. In France it's about having the freedom to practice whatever religion you choose without it being anyone else's business. The French census doe not ask about your religion. It is illegal for employers, real estate agents, schools to demand this information. Religion, like so much else in France, is private. And, if you want to wave your Jewish/Muslim/Protestant flag, that's on you.

The guide had dozens of anecdotes from WWII about the ineffectiveness of German antisemitic propaganda on French citizens. There were elementary school boys who made fake yellow stars for themselves so their Jewish friend wouldn't stand out. Then and now, it's not about Judaism. There's no problem there. The problem is with zealous observance of any kind, displays of faith if you will. Which is still a problem, it's just a different one than the NYT conceives.

And this has all kind of been reeling through my mind as Noel approaches. It's beautiful here, lots of tinsel and boughs of ivy dusted with snow, Christmas markets with wooden stalls, understated but merry. And I love this time of year: any reason for people to consciously be kinder to each other is just fine by me. But, I also feel transplanted back to third grade. Let me explain. It is VERY difficult for an 8 year old who waits all year for Santa to understand that somebody doesn't celebrate Christmas, and even once they wrap their head around that bombshell, it's inconceivable that this poor Jew wouldn't be devastated. And I would just respond the same way I did in middle school when people asked incredulously how I could have lived without eating a bacon cheeseburger: "It's never been a part of my life, so I don't miss it. It's no big thing." And then they console themselves by saying Well, at least she has Hanukkah, and I think at some point I gave up trying to explain the lack of importance of the festival of lights.

So here I am, in Paris, without any Jewish friends and I suspect there are several people in my class who, whether they realize it or not, have never met a Jew before. And I'm happy to spread awareness on 80 year old misconceptions about race, or about the laws of kashrut, or about the holidays...but something about it feels off. It's not true, but it feels like I'm the Last Jew standing, and there's something in recounting these vibrant through-lines of my life for the cultural education of others that feels a little too much like recalling a lost civilization, which especially in Europe hits a bit close to home. And the good news is that it's not true. The bad news is that that's not necessarily the way I'm living, and I'm not sure what to do with that just yet. But, Hanukkah is just around the corner, and since according to my classmates it's an important moment, maybe there's another miracle, or even a moment of clarity, just around the corner.

C'est la vie? C'est MA vie

GAWD I hate this whiny bitch. I mean, it could be because the writing isn't that good (let's call it repetitive in an uninspired way and uninspired in a repetitive way) or it could be because technically I haven't been 23 for 27 days or it could be that I very actively made life choices to avoid living my way into these cliches. (Fear is an excellent motivator.) But the part that really gets me is the cheesiness at the end. Seriously? Neither you nor your audience deserve this coddling, and you haven't for nearly two decades. Get your shit together. Or at least take on your shit with a fresh approach.

Speaking of dealing with metaphysical angst in new and exciting ways, the Picasso Museum reopened here in Paris after an (unexpectedly long) five year renovation. (Now that's what I call a transition.) Picasso,"the insider who was always an outsider," lived in Paris for most of his adult life and though I've never seen a curator call him Parisian, he was certainly in conversation with these enclaves of otherness that populated the city of lights (all the way from gas to electric) in the 20th century. And it's kind of funny that we associate artists like Picasso and Hemingway and Stein with this City when their experience was probably closer to an occupation than an immersion. They hung out with other expats and did expaty things and sure, they patronized local businesses, but cafe creme and vin rouge do not a Parisian make.

And I'm really no different. There is a constant struggle...struggle is the wrong word, it implies that my life is hard...a constant tug between blending in and embracing the aspects of my otherness that make Paris all the more exciting. When I see a picturesque alley curving into a softly lit corner, can I take a picture? Do I want a picture? Should I pretend that this is normal, or feed my own aesthetic delight? At the end of the day there are no wrong answers, and the choice is really mine to make what I want of the experience.

And here's the secret: that is not a condition particular to Parisian photo ops. As a member of the universe's most coddled generation I feel like, much to my disappointment, it might be necessary to remind my peers that 23 (and 22 and 24 and all the way up, as high as you care to go) is not an incurable disease. Your early 20s are not an illness or temporary psychosis or punishment. This epoch of our lives is a boundless realm of opportunities, which can either be squandered whining and watching netflix or experienced at the hands of the world that exists beyond the triple locked doors of our tiny apartments. (Note: there is in fact room for both, it may even be a necessity, I'm not ruling it out)

Well you make it sound so easy...like I have complete control over my own destiny, like I'm the only one to blame if shit's not going the way I want it to...Well...yea! A little extreme, but hate to break it to you sunshine, all the excuses people have been making for you are now being showered upon the next generation of over/under achievers. So put on some Sara Bareilles, and then some Beyonce, dust yourself off, and be honest with yourself about your life. Acknowledge the things that make you happy. Revel in them. Change the things that don't. Yes, CHANGE! You can do it. Relatively young dogs learn new tricks all the time. ALL the time. And once you accept this challenge the frightening yet empowering truth comes out, which is that your life is not a circumstance of the universe or voo doo or your neighbors who have really loud sex while you're trying to sleep. It's just you. So make the most of it.

Netflix in moderation. Responsibility in gross. It's called growing up.

Save Room for Apple Pie

So...how's it been? I know, I know, I just kind of disappeared there. But I've got excuses and then some. Like my phone got stolen from a poorly made hostel bed while I ducked into the bathroom. Rude. And I usually write weekly at my Shut Up and Write gatherings, but I was busy and away and then busy writing about being away...so here we are.

A month and OH SO MUCH has happened. For serious, I finished my trop intensive beginner french class and consequently jumped to intermediate, which has indeed felt like I skipped elementary, which is what I did. I guess part of that is the adjustment to the new professor, and part of that is the level, and part of that is my classmates who like to shout out answers because apparently they want to prove to us struggling plebs that they know more than us? We get it buddy. You're not coming off as intelligent now, just as an ass-hole. Is that hyphenated? Oh English grammar, where have you gone...

I can feel my brain making room for the genders of nouns and irregular verb endings and cultural laws and the olfactory identification of cheese. But what am I forgetting? What is being repressed or pushed irretrievably into the oblivion? It's easy to know some of the things that I'm losing: names of elementary school classmates, celebrity factoids, triscuit flavors. But I sense there is a larger body of information that I'm losing unknowingly, perhaps frames of reference that have just completely shifted. How bizarre are traffic signs going to look if/when I return stateside? Will I still be able to operate a coffee maker 87% asleep? How much do a half dozen eggs cost in U.S. Dollars? I have no idea...

So, you see cher reader, it's kind of bizarre. I have a passion for Manhattan, but now I'm infinitely more familiar with the streets and metros of Paris. And I've always loved bread, but damn, I fear the day that I won't be able to choose from 3 equally but distinctly fantastic baguettes. And though I'm convinced that eclairs are the DL nectar of the gods, my Parisian sensibilities curb my appetite to a maximum of one a week.

This is all a colorful and very food centric way of saying that I've changed, and after 4 short months it feels like Paris is a part of me that I won't ever be able to get rid of. And I guess I'm just not exactly sure how that happens. How do novelties turn in to routines? How do things you've done a bajillion times still feel fresh? Not just pleasant, but genuinely thrilling?

I...don't really know. I guess just chock it up to the magic of Paris. Because the most surprising thing that has somehow been pushed aside by an encyclopedic categorization of Parisian pastries and the mostly illogical streets of the Latin quartier is a longing for the good 'ol US of A. I'm not saying that I could stay here forever, but I am saying that if the people (whom I miss dearly) came to visit me, I don't know that I'd have a compelling reason to go back...which is kind of scary and liberating and...i don't know, I guess exciting.

Here's to one way tickets and clear head space.
(and to the very unclear head space of one way tickets)

Les Étrangers

The week of September 7 to 13 is one that renews annually my fascination with the stories of immigration, identity construction, and American multiculturalism. Not exactly "how to pack for your weekend in Milan in 7 easy steps!" Or "but really, can I wear shorts in Paris?" but nonetheless a series of questions that define and encourage my passion for exploring the corners near and far of this planet we call home.

This past Friday I had to go to OFII, the French immigration office, for a long awaited appointment to say "hey France, I'm here!" And for them to say "yea, yea, we know, but first you have to have a medical exam." Most of my anxiety for the exchange was based on my series of horrible experiences at the French embassy in NY where I mostly felt like I was in a YouTube web series that was steryotyping the French or realizing a series of nightmares. Let's just say it wasn't exactly pleasant. But despite its windowless waiting rooms and topless x-rays and impatient employees, the whole OFII process was surprisingly efficient and organized. That may be because everyone was waiting, stewing in their own anxiety about when the frenchness of it all would come to bite them in the ass. But it could also be because we were just a group of étrangers who wanted to take care of this formality and continue living in France.

I couldn't help but think of Ellis Island. Huge halls bursting with immigrants. After my eye exam I probably would have received my pink chalk x on my coat and been sent back to die alone in Poland. But that wasn't the only difference. Because when I think of Ellis Island I think of my great grandparents, not because they necessarily came through Ellis island, but because they immigrated to the U.S. and had my grandparents, who worked hard and lived well, and they had my parents, who were the first in their families to graduate from 4 year college, who have also worked hard so that I can get somewhere they haven't been. And I chose back to Europe, where they have literally been, but I think figuratively you see what I'm getting at. And I am the first to admit that this linear American dream excludes millions of Americans, for millions of well researched and documented reasons ranging from housing laws to hiring practices to lending policies, but to me it feels like a very real and personal part of my history. Which was particularly strange as I sat in this waiting room that made me think I might be in a holding port on an alien planet 1000 years in the future, that kindly took on the remaining humans after we had used up all of our resources and our hosts were now evaluating the refugees for the extent of their radiation poisoning.

Despite its innacuracy, the divide for me has been past v. future, racist v. multicultural, my parents' world v. my world, suspicion v. understanding. And I think this is probably an appropriately idealistic division of realms for a 23 year old living in Paris off of 4 years in California off of a childhood in a liberal household in NJ. I want to believe that the worst is over and the best is yet to come, for me but also for the world.

I had my book club this past Monday, and in a stroke of fateful coincidence we had read "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," which naturally gave way to a discussion of 9/11 and the detail that I was the only person present who had been in the U.S. at the time. I grew up in New Jersey, a neighbor of New York but I never would or could claim to be a New Yorker. But my mom was working at South Street Seaport September 11, 2001. She took the PATH to the trade center from Jersey city every morning and took it home every night. I was in fifth grade at the time and was deemed too young (as was my entire school) to be told what had happened by someone who wasn't my guardian. So I have three very distinct memories of that day:
1. My teacher being pulled out mid morning and coming back in pretty upset due to unknown causes which later became very clear
2. Running into my house after school and finding both of my parents home, but more specifically my Mom. This was bizarre. I can count the number of times my mom was home when I got home from school on a seal's fingers. Something was clearly wrong.
3. And amid the endless news coverage, replaying the same videos and pictures and clips I remember seeing a line of nurses and physicians waiting at ER entrances for victims who would never come.

These are unoriginal, but specific enough to satisfy me. What I found far more interesting were the perspectives of the other 20 people in my book group who hadn't been there, who had watched from afar. And what was remarkable to me (as I think I may overcorrect the issue of American arrogance to a fault) is that they cared. They told me that the world had perceived America as being untouchable. That it was horrible. And in my response to the book's connection between Dresden, Hiroshima, and Manhattan (my concern being that perhaps this was the author's way of saying you can only kill so many civilians before it gets back to you) a particularly insightful reader and woman responded "no." "No, that's not right. They were all just civilians. And that's never right. That's never deserved. That's never 'what's coming to you.'" Which, in the divide between past and future, I hope we can hold more steadfastly to going forward. But, in not sure that we did. Immediately following 9/11 there was so much hatred, fueled by xenophobia and aimless fear, towards Arab Americans. It didn't really matter what their religion was or where their family came from or how many generations of their families had been natural born citizens of the United States of America, only that they were different and dangerous. It was the most thorough racism that I think I'll ever see. And take note that in my immediate response, my clearest memories, and I suspect this is true of many many people, it was the shock of the event, trauma on a human level, that grabbed us. It was only injected with venomous politics in the after math.

And now, in some basic, minimal way, the tables have turned. I am the stranger in a strange land, one without any history of hospitality towards outsiders, or even towards insiders. I am in the place of my great grandparents, but with an escape hatch. I am in the place of so many citizens after 9/11, confined to a box because of my loaded nationality, with the obvious improvement of aggression towards me being slighted and more subtle. And yet, I don't find myself craving home.

Last Sunday I went to see Le Magicien d'OZ at a revival movie theatre and was surprised by the message that eluded me as a child. Before heading home to wake up from her fever dream Dorothy proves to Glinda she has learned her lesson by saying, "Well, I - I think that it - it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em - and it's that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?" And with a release date of August 25, 1939 I suppose this opinion make sense. What could be better than the good 'ol US of A? Why would anyone want to leave? But to stretch this deeply isolationist dictum 75 years into the future would be a great disservice, to the individual and to the world. First of all, Dorothy never would have learned her meaningful lesson and just generally gotten her shit together sitting on the couch in Kansas. And second of all, by heading to OZ with her earthly knowledge bordering on magical, she is able to rid them of their public enemy #1. So I can't help but be pleased with my choice to head to the emerald city in search of a way home, not as much to return, because my friends at United could help with that, but to understand it better. And I'm keeping an eye out for buckets of water.

Back to my Roots

This week has brought a heap of reminders of why I started this blog. It is called Quarter for your Thoughts, because I like English language idioms and word play and my senior year of college I signed up for a creativity workshop and found myself craving an outlet for all my fear and anxiety. All of a sudden I was graduating and I didn't know what to do and I really wanted to believe it was going to be ok, but as my peers know and my elders remember it isn't so easy when you're seemingly surrounded by success ad infinitum. People with dream jobs and dream apartments and even dream weddings abound.

And then it got harder. Because the plan that I did have failed, and then not only was my day to day life unpleasant but I had nothing to look forward to. It felt like I had missed the last train and I was stuck in the unfriendly land of underachievement and underemployment. And it was from this sense of rock bottom that I rallied and harnessed my inner Dana and made Paris happen.

But this all a preface to saying that I feel I've been doing a disservice to my 3 readers. Perhaps you read this as an escape, but I can't in good conscience continue without a word of caution. In the world of Facebook, Twitter, and instagram I fill in gaps of communication with friends with their social media social lives, which consistently look incredible. My friends are moving in to cities and getting real jobs and drinking bottomless mimosas at brunch. They're living the American dream set forth by Rachel Green and Lena Dunham, and when emails and postcards and Facebook messages go unanswered I assume it's because they're too busy tweeting clever things as they people watch while getting a drink before an outdoor concert. Because that's what their lives look like through the  filter of the internet.

But then I do hear back from them. And when there's #nofilter I realize that they aren't doing that well. And while they're smiling for the camera there is plenty going wrong that they haven't told me. Jobs are bad, roommates are terrible, relationships are on the rocks: and yet omelettes appear on instagram every Sunday and profile pics are updated to reflect the most recent cultural outing or booze fest or relationship, even if they weren't that great.

And it upsets me, but if I'm being honest I've been doing the same thing. I learned early on in my Athens blog that if you really write the full range of emotion you
1) lose all sense of privacy;
2) make people think you're manic, if not suicidal;
3) abandon creative license over your own story.
People remember not as you do, but as they remember your blog. And the benefit of human memory is that it allows us to remember and edit our past in a way that makes sense for our present. But putting that in someone else's hands is dangerous. So this blog is much more skewed towards the positive. Or at least the sane. It's also worth mentioning that being 3 years older, I'm just generally a slightly more stable person.

Which is all great for me, but I don't want the people out there who are using this as source material (whether to understand how I am or to compare to their own experience) to think that I have it all figured out or that this is all easy and relaxing and simple and pleasant. I'm alone in a city where I just barely speak the language, which is thrilling for all the same reasons that it's terrifying. And while the experience is intense, in a good way, that also means that everything else is happening at an intensified rate: people are leaving, people are arriving, my brain is kicking out old stuff to make room for French, and to be alone in a city so enveloped in its own identity of romance and intimacy is exhausting.

And on top of all of that, I still have no idea what I'm doing next. Which is to say that I'm more or less where I was 18 months ago, but with a better view. And no, I'm not really in the same spot. But my experience isn't that helpful and I'm still struggling with essentially the same questions.
So, I am happier then I can remember being in years. I feel more centered and more calm and more ready to make those life choices, but I'm not there yet, so just for the record, don't compare. Take it for what it is: a highlights reel, a series of pleasant musings, me figuring shit out on an ongoing basis. I hope y'all can say the same.