‘i just feel my life started here’, F. said a sunday afternoon in collingowood yards, with a blue margarita in her hand.
we are getting close to our middle life. and we might realise we haven’t had a proper life.
one week later i came to Europe for the holiday break. felt like i never left.
still, everybody is going through massive change.
at the beginning, i didn’t want to make this trip. somehow i knew i was still to weak for it.
to find myself home in my comfort zone would make me wonder the choices of the last months.
but i wanted to feel the heat and the love of my loved ones.
to resource myself. to feel i am still part of their life. that i am not missing their important stuff.
break ups. newborns. loss. new homes and some job promotions.
in between catch-ups, i struggled to readjust to Parisian life.
i am so bad at jet lag. made me incapable of having a functional life. still, i could make all the social interactions with my loved ones.
i was keeping a sick routine working from overseas. woke up at three. had calls until six. falling asleep one hour still. more calls until nine. by ten I was already mentally sick. slept again until 3. catch-up with HR. some hellos with my old staff.
going for a walk. saw some Mark Rothko, Jackman and LowBros.
dinner time. beaujolais, compte and saint felicien.
le mansart. tequila shot. it’s done. i can go for loose control mode.
you post in instagram. your red flags giving you some hearts and a bunch of j’ai envie de toi. ready to hunt you around your third regram.
but you are not the same one. you didn’t move to the end of the world to be back to the same mistakes.
you wake up in your own bed. congrats! you got a portion of your dignity back.
next day we went to CafeCherie. ‘I want us to be exclusive’, L. told him. ‘sorry, not ready for it’, he answered back. one hour later L. was making out with 3 different guys in the same club the same night.
‘i just wish i could stop kissing everyone’, she said.
when you only rely in your own heat, with who could you count with? i get it, stranger d* could warm you for a bit when you are in need.
next day had a coffee with M. she told me about her wedding prep.
the day after i saw D. we discussed about that married guy writing her day and night.
had dinner with B. ‘my ex is getting married’, she told me. ‘his last Spotify tracks are too happy for somebody who just broke-up’.
some friends are getting married. some others are getting attention of guys that are married. others know their ex will get married.
in this trip i was looking for reassurance. but instead found lots of disturbance.
couldn’t see C. her father passed away. i saw H. he told me how his friend got into coma for a blood test that everybody forgot to request.
L. started therapy. she decided it was time to be happy. she has a pattern putting bad people in her life. she opened herself and told me pretty ugly stuff.
or maybe it’s not disturbance. maybe it’s just that conventional and not conventional is not existing anymore. there is only do what you can with what you have.
so we can start accepting that we don’t have our life under control. that we are lost. that the path we were having in our mind got changed with unexpected bumps.
S. made me an intervention. i was telling him about my fear of rejection.
‘you are a general manager in your work life and you can’t take the lead in you own life. stop overthinking and be the GM of your life’, he said.
ok then, I thought. here we are. i never lacked courage in my life but here i am afraid of opening my heart.
thank you Paris. you have been a blast. right on time, six months after we saw each other for the last time.
getting there is still the place where i find myself. my state of mind. my tagline.
but i am getting closer. seems we have random thoughts for another quarter.
because i might not know what life is about. but i am living it the best i can.
we born. we grow. we get old. we die. you might wake up one day realising you are just biology.
let’s make sure we are biography.