Oh, And There's That

Since I have moved, I have been filling my days with my family and searching for a job. These seemingly modest activities have warped my time space continuum somehow. Maybe it's that strange unemployment space, or maybe it's because I am trying to make up for lost time with the neicephews, but I (for some reason) have not made time for blogging. Other not so exciting things I have started doing include:

Reading. I'd forgotten how much I love that. And now I don't feel guilty for reading in English. In fact, I've picked up the last book I tried to read in French (Marie Antoinette, the Journey, by Antonia Fraser) and am thoroughly enjoying it. Note: I now understand why I couldn't get through it in French. Historical biographies are apparently not great starter books in another language.

Going to the gym. Well, I've gone three times, anyhow. But I like the way it makes me feel so much that I'll keep going. I mean, I have to make sure I don't have flabby teacher arm for my wedding in September.

What? Oh, right, that's the other thing I did: I got engaged. To The Boy, even! Just that little thing that has been occupying my time and filling my thoughts.

I don't actually have a ring yet. Well, I don't technically have a proposal. The decision was made via telephone New Year's day when he returned to Paris. He refuses to make a real proposal without a ring or, you know, my hand in real life. I sort of agree with that, actually, so it works. Regardless of the formalities, it's happening.

We've told his parents. We've told my family. I (kind of accidentally on purpose) updated my relationship status on facecrack. We're getting quotes from caterers (which we probably won't use) filing his visa paperwork with the lawyer, and making Save the Date cards. I have purchased invitation and my dress. The date is set.

This is really happening.

It feels sort of surreal, actually. I guess I thought I would feel this huge surge of giddy excitement, something akin to squealing women in Sex in the City, but mostly I just feel content. I feel calm and sure. I am getting married to a man who challenges me. He is my opposite and yet my twin. We met each other and jumped headfirst onto this path and haven't looked back since. We grow together, learn from each other, make each other stronger. It's not at all what I thought it would be like. I think I poisoned myself with so many cheesy romantic comedies over the years that I thought they were how it was supposed to go for me.

But it wasn't. It's not - except for that I am truly in love with my future husband - and I am glad for that. I feel grounded, for once. Happy. Which is like, so fucking cool.

We have a wedding date for labor day weekend. Unfortunately before that comes all the shitty house keeping things like, oh finding a job, but I am sure the months will go by fast. We have lots of paperwork to do. We still have to find an apartment (and ahem A JOB) and plan the wedding. Sister L has gotten me started by TiVoing hours of wedding reality shows. Have you ever seen Bridezillas? Because that is the angle I am working on for the next coming months. (Just joking.)

I mean, I don't really have anything better to do. Right? Except all that...

Cave Dwelling

Boo Radley has burrowed between two of the comforters to hide. He's lightly snoring now, and I can see the lump of his round belly heave up and down next to the lump that is his head. A heavy kitty sigh escapes. He feels safe.

I did that today too, for a little while. If it weren't for my sister and her children I would have stayed there all day. It felt good pulling the covers up over my head and shutting off my brain. Later, I sat on the stairs going down to the basement and cried a little. It felt better after that - my brain. Like the hissing chatter had been momentarily silenced.

Everything is going really well, actually. I am happy and well fed. I am in good company, with plenty of things to keep me busy. When I sat on the stairs, even through the tears, I knew there was no reason for them. But they were there. So I let them come.

I didn't really cry about leaving Paris. The day I left began so early, driving through the snow to the bowels of some part of Charles de Gaulle people just don't think about and surely don't know exists. I didn't cry that day.

When I dropped the Boy off at the airport to go back to France I only cried a little then. Knowing he would be on a flight back soon took away those tears.

But today I cried. I guess for all these little things. Because people have started the inevitable curious questioning about Paris and why I left and I still think it's right for me but oh man it hits me sometimes that that beautiful city is no longer outside my door.

The thing is, Paris breathed life back into me. It gave me my adult soul, my woman body, my stronger heart. I feel a certain pressure (self imposed, of course) to keep that momentum going. I am afraid that, if I stagnate too long, that I will once again be the aimless girl who arrived in Paris. Part of me is afraid that I already am.

And I guess that is the problem with coming home. Those skeletons you thought you buried well come back to the surface to be reckoned with - to be reconciled. The girl I was the last time I lived with my sister is still here in this basement, tempting me to be the same, to return to my old ways. I feel like I have to keep moving; to shake her off.

The electric baseboard heater clicks, and stretches and hisses covering up the muffled sounds of my sister and her husband in the room above me. I am locked into my basement room - no windows, no drafts, no clear sounds except those that come from the cat beside me - and here I feel safe. Soon I will have to be back out in the world, out of the cocoon, out of the darkness, and back on my path. Soon enough.

Planning

Today was a snow day.

In the 'country', where my sister lives, the process of mobilizing snow plows on the back roads and up long driveways to peoples tucked away houses takes a decent amount of time and so when it snows more than five inches, it's called a snow day. People stay in, mostly, because it makes more sense than getting up at four o'clock in the morning to shovel your tenth of a mile long driveway.

Those in the city get screwed, really, because the exigent and sufficient amount of ready-to-go plows are out on the streets as soon as the first flakes begin to stick. They salt and scrape and salt and scrape so that, by morning, if it's five inches or less you can be on the road and slowly on your way to work.

But not out here. One or two plows means the school bus isn't coming through in enough time to make it worth getting your kid out of bed, so you'd might as well stay in. So we did.

I woke up this morning to pancakes and sausage and hot coffee. It was a weekend breakfast on a Wednesday - a real treat. The neicephews were up and ready to capitalize on every hour of not being in school possible, and who could blame them. As a child who knew few, oh-so-rare snow days in my youth, I sort of envied them.

This does not mean I went out and played in the snow.

While they played in the bitter whirlwinds of flurries that lifted off the fresh blankets of white, I contemplated my coming months. Well, I napped a little, and then I contemplated.

I feel overwhelmed by the list of things to do, even though, really, everything is going terribly smoothly. It's just that old habit that dies hard, waiting for the next step, wishing The Boy was here with me, trying to make sure that I get enough productive things done each day.

That's where I fall short. I am trying to start my book - the one I have been hypothetically writing for the last ten years. I am sending out resumes and following up on the applications. I am planning for the fall and the big big changes that will occur then, when The Boy is here and we will be settled. I am trying. And then....falling asleep.

Should I be worried about the amount I sleep? My neice keenly noted that I am still asleep when they go to school and usually napping when they get home. But I have started exercising! (If you can call it that.) I am not used to living with children?? I am used to being unemployed??????

Whatever. The point IS that as always I need just a little more motivation. Like a cayenne pepper to my soul. An electric shock to my get up and go. I have so much to achieve and so little .... energy.

Oh sweet delicious sleep, you are my frenemy.

And then I stop and realize - it has fourteen days since my vacation ended. I still have time. I am moving forward. Things are going as planned - if slightly more expensive than anticipated. I will be employed soon and things will follow suit and fall into place.

I do still have time for a nap.

After all it was a snow day.

Hey Look! I'm Over Here Now!

Two weeks were gone in a blink. It seemed that no sooner had we retrieved Boo Radley from customs* than I was driving The Boy back to the airport in New York. It was an absolutely lovely Christmas, full of food and presents and love all spread out on a giant red table cloth at my sister's house.

And it didn't feel like a move at all. There were a few moments of quiet where I thought about how much I would miss certain things about Paris, but having The Boy there for the first ten days made the transition seamless. Even leaving him at the airport was far less bitter than I had imagined, knowing that he would be back in a few short months. Indeed, the same day he touched down in France he purchased a ticket back, Philly bound.

We still have details to sort out. I am already full steam ahead in the job search (resisting my relentless, illogical urge to look for an apartment to nest in before I even have an income). We have yet to choose where exactly we will live (we're leaning towards the burbs, on a train line), and The Boy has a whole big job search of his own to do. There will be a car to buy (eventually), furniture and all the dressings of a home (immediately), planning, organizing, saving. All these things that feel remarkably adult and still terribly foreign. When did that happen? When did I become an adult?

But it is happening, we're settling, we're moving on and moving in. It feels easy and natural for me, and so I know that this time it's right. It's a New Year. It's a clean slate and a fresh page. It crossed my mind to set some resolutions, but I have have enough irons in the fire to not worry about getting things done. This year is a big one, a huge one, a monster of a New Year and I can't wait to get it going.

What waits for you in 2011?

*Stay tuned for the Boo Radley saga in the coming week. Spoiler: I cried more than he did.