I’ve always wanted to go to Paris since I was a little girl. The first international trip he and I took was to Paris. Everyone around us warned me about the trouble I would have going through customs, which I suppose speaks to my personality opportunities. I can be very tongue in cheek, sarcastic at times. I can also be charming, endearing and act 100% appropriate at all times. It was a little disappointing to me that people thought that I wouldn’t even be able to make it through international customs.
We learned a lot about each other that first trip together. We had been on a few trips together for long weekends, but nothing this long. We were going with the travel time for 10 days. He wanted to make a full fledged agenda. This was not the way I traveled, or travel. I pointed out the issue with traveling like that- if the weather was bad on a certain day, or we were jet lagged, it would mess up everything; all the plans. We compromised and made a list of places we wanted to go; places we must go and places it would be nice to go.
We learned I get travel induced insomnia. (Insomnia plagues me throughout much of my life, except my life with him. He has been my safety blanket) He still naps, no matter where we are. He is able to adapt to the clocks no matter where we are in the world. It is a skill that I have never been able to adapt fully to. He rises with the sun and goes to bed when the moon rises. We had flown overnight. He had slept on the flight over, and every minute he slept I hated him for it. I let him take up my space, as I do (did) most of the time we traveled, due to our size difference. (He is tall and skinny) I don’t know if it was excitement, or just couldn’t sleep. We had a two leg flight, first into Dublin, then to Paris. I cat napped from Dublin to Paris.
When we arrived, I had someone try to pick pocket me. He is always in a crowd walking far ahead of me. He can plow through people due to his stature and size, I’m small and petite. He will push through one person and then I am lost behind, fighting my way to try to get to him. As I had barely slept, and am not a world class traveler, I was generally quite useless trying to get from the airport to our apartment in Paris. He was annoyed with me, rightfully so. We were both tired and jetlagged. I get anxious when trying to figure out directions in English, let alone French. I do have an uncanny sense for driving directions, but not for walking directions, and not for maps. Never, ever give me a map and expect me to get us anywhere. When we arrived in central Paris, this was where the attempted pick pocketing occured. He was, far ahead of me, and I was dragging luggage behind me. It was 11AM. I could not have been screaming “MUG ME,” anymore if I had a sign on. I jabbed the gentleman with me bony elbow on one side and then the other several times. Thankfully, I had my pockets zipped on trusty North Face. He was annoyed with me when I came out of the subway station looking like I was going to cry. He apologized for leaving me behind. I don’t think it would have made a difference. I am a tiny target. We found our apartment without any great incidence after that. It was right around the corner.
The first night we were there we tried to walk up the steps to Sacre Couer. I say tried because my legs had so much trouble. My muscle don’t work so well going up steps. The steps up to there seemed to go forever. So, I could go up a few and would have to stop as they would cramp up. I know he was annoyed at me. I can walk on flat ground forever, for miles upon miles, but I can not walk up stairs. The view from up there was worth it once we got there. The church was beautiful.
We started our days out with pastries from the local patiserie. We burnt bacon in the self locking oven, terrified that we would set the building on fire. We wandered the streets in love. We saw the Eiffel Tower. I would run down the block at night to see it lit up. It was a dream come true. We were, as they say, in love. We ate crepes from the street vendors. Don’t worry, I didn’t wear a beret. It wasn’t quite that bad.
Shortly after we were there, they took down the Love Locks Bridge in Paris. Maybe that was a sign. I have pictures of it. It was beautiful, perfectly imperfect in everyway. Everyone’s stories on it with their locks of love. We saw Notre Dame in it’s beauty. I spent hours upon hours in there taking pictures of the stained glass windows. I cried the day it caught fire.
We spent the days in museums, parks and admiring art. Watching street performers. Seeing the sites. We saw someone get hit by a bus, my biggest fear. We stopped jay walking after that. (I didn’t like jay walking to begin with) We went to Versailles. Marie Antonette’s play village inspired me to look at the world a new. I wondered what it would have been like to be a player in her little fake town, to have to plant things for her to find, clean eggs from her chickens for example.
While we were there, one of the books I read had our town in it. Our lives were overlapped and full circle. My heart was full. I was in the city of love with my love. Prior to leaving, he had put an offer in on a house and it had been accepted. This home was to be out marital home. We were yet to be engaged, but we had picked it out together. Everything was falling into place. I couldn’t see how my life could get any better, than with this man. He made my heart full of love. He was making my life feel complete, something I didn’t think possible. I had spent so much time feeling like I wasn’t worthy of this kind of love, and yet here I was; it was oozing out of my pores. Paris forshadowed my life. It ended up decorating my home. Eiffel Towers all over. It had an underlying meaning for me- love all over the house. I am not sure he ever understood that.
You know what? I hate Paris now. I hate everything it stands for. The city of love. He ruined it for me. All that hope and joy. It is all ripped out of me. I am not sure it can ever be brought back. I used to be a complete pessimist. I evolved into an realist. After being with him, I had, dare I say, turned into a bit of an optimtist. Living with a disease where you don’t know if you’re going to be ok when you wake up the next day, that dampens your ablility to be a true optimist. It hinders that for you. I am worse than a pessimist now. I barely see colors in anything. I have lost the will to live, let alone love. He ripped my heart out and threw it out and fed it to feral wolves. My body feels empty and alone. I am just wondering how and why and is it ever going to get better.
Never had a white picket fence 