“I’m done with Paris.”
I left Paris late in June and just got back yesterday. In all the time that I’ve been away, this has been my mantra.
It makes sense to most everyone who knows me: after all, I’m not one to stay in one place for long, and the fact that I managed to stick around here for more than a year is pretty extraordinary.
I’m just passing through, really. I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Spain, one more adventure, one more tick on my list of places I’ve lived.
But as I walked back to my apartment tonight, I didn’t feel that urge to run that’s been hiding out somewhere between my lungs and the back of my throat for months. I didn’t look around and feel awed or fenced in or even nostalgic.
I felt like I was home.
It’s a strange feeling… stranger still to know that everyone else already has a place that feels like this all the time, and I’m only just discovering it at 22.
I’m happy to go to Spain. I’m looking forward to the hypothetical trips to Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey, Ireland and Peru that have been bouncing around my head for the past few weeks–I’m not giving them up. But it’s nice to know that at the end of it, I’ll have a place to come crawling back to, where I know when things are opened and I can walk myself home even tipsy in the rain.
I thought I was done with Paris, but I guess Paris wasn’t done with me.
Hello,
Thanks a lot for writing back and in fact reading from you was very comforting. I just got into NY yesterday from Austin. As I write this, I am on board a bus that is driving us to Long Island.
When I settle back, I will write back to you and submitt my request for help or recommendation. But I can end this without pointing out that, I was afraid when I saw your lead and it read: I am done with Paris, please don’t go away we need you.
Cheers,
Elie.