May 25th 2013, I Got Married.

Well, on May 25th I got married. I'm deeply in love, happy, and all around moved by the occasion, but I do feel a bit like I'm standing in front of a dark window trying to see out. The skepticism about love and relationships I've cultivated all my life in order to be a practical and realistic adult some day, (an absurd notion, I know) has me trained to feel that a marriage between two people so young is bound to.. deflate. I sort of doubt my husband and I know each other half as well as we've even come to know ourselves, which is probably not at all. Are we even people yet in our twenties? There's no question we both have a lot of growing to do, and it seems reasonable that we will outgrow one another. 

I think a lot of people expect their wedding to be one of the "happiest days of their life" and plan on it to such an extant that all the expectation washes over the love and sincerity of the occasion and all they get are a bunch of plates covered in cake crumbs and scads of posed photographs. (Not to mention a huge wedding tab.) It's interesting: A and I had such little expectation, and such a small ceremony, I think both of us were surprised by how happy we were. Several times since then I've thought it was one of the happiest days of my life. Who knew?

Here in France they say, "marriage pleveuse, marriage heureuse." A rainy marriage is a happy marriage. Well, on the day we got hitched, it rained, hailed, thundered, and blue sky and perfect sunshine appeared sporadically throughout. It was bizarre. Does anyone know the appropriate proverb? As everyone keeps telling me- everybody goes into this sort of thing the same way: knowing nothing, but hoping for the best. In other words, while we have a lot of growing to do, I may as well count on us growing into our relationship, rather than us growing out of it. 

 

..and, yes, before anyone blows a gasket, there will be photos and details to follow

The Mechanics of Decision Making and the Joy of "Yes"

I realize I never gave much insight into the lengthy and somewhat painful decision making process that came with deciding to get married. I went through the most absurd and, I have to say, surprising phase of fear, uncertainty, and all around cold feet. Before the concept of suddenly getting married had arose, I was fairly preoccupied with the idea of marriage and convinced I wanted A to be my family. But, once the real decision was put on the table and I was given a week to pick a side, all of that confidence fell off me like snow evacuating a rugged mountain peak in a brisk avalanche. 

The string of stinging questions: Will I never have romance again? Is he the right one? What about butterflies? Crushes? The thrill of meeting someone new and the electricity of new attraction? Is he the right one? Is he really, really the right one????

Close friends and colleagues were concerned that if I were plagued by these questions I probably shouldn't go through with it. Their doubt only intensified my own, and on several occasions I was firmly convinced the answer would be "no." 

In retrospect it's hard for me to wrap my head around this, because in the decision making after math, the storm subsided and  warm elation took its place. When I was agonizing and going back and forth, I even asked A while we were having a drink in a wine bar on the beach, (seriously,) "aren't you concerned about never having another girlfriend..?" He matter-of-factly shrugged and said "no." -without a moment's hesitation. I was impressed, but still churning with an internal ocean of turbulence.

Now, in the weeks after "yes," everything has calmed. Like when the wizard comes into the room after Mickey had caused the big flood with all the bewitched brooms in Fantasia- he just waves his hands and all the rushing water subsides. I'm confident and happy. Now that I'm no longer stressing over the decision, I think I can actually see the reality of the situation: I'm in love! And, geez, I'm happy! And even more surprising and elating, I don't give a damn about crushes and electric attraction. I've had plenty of that and none of it compares to the real thing. The real joy of being with someone who speaks to you on much more than a superficial level. 

We're not doing it the conventional way, sure, or even the most glamorous or romantic. But it's the right way- and it feels so good to know it. 

The French Twenty Fifth

Yesterday, astoundingly, was my third birthday since moving to France. Incidentally it was the best one thus far and not so surprisingly my oldest yet- 25. I'm officially half way through my twenties and there's definitely a shift of consciousness that comes along with it. The pre-25 20 birthdays were all very fresh, sexy, and dangerous. This one feels significantly more serious. 

I treated myself to a bike ride to the Parc de la Colombière where I visited the spring baby goats. So tiny! The size of cats and springing and jumping like popcorn. Little French kids were reaching their hands through the fence and feeding them bread and leaves.  In the evening, A took me out to a pretty extravagant dinner of six courses: escargot, tartar de beouf, echine de chouchon with heavenly mushrooms de Paris, a ridiculously rich cheese platter, avocado and citron sorbet, followed by a perfect port wine with a terimisu. Not to mention several to-die-for wines. Poor A, I clearly saw him break a sweat when the bill arrived. Luckily I was too tipsy and happy to feel guilty. My birthday present: a calcedoine ring. It's beautiful and it fits.  

Anyone who has been following this blog from its beginnings will know that this birthday is a vast improvement to the lonely lamentable situation of my first birthday abroad.(Entrapped with B in his messy, monk tower apartment questioning the decisions of my life- followed by dinner with some seriously unpleasant company which I payed for.) Ahhh. It's so true what the say about needing the bad to appreciate the good, though. Had I never suffered a birthday with B, or five years of mediocre relationship with K, for that matter, I'm not sure I'd know how good my situation is now. 

A Love Worth Waiting For

The $1000 Chip

I'm seemingly going through a dark place. In the day I can't remember what our intimacy was like or if it even existed. Sometimes I get a little flashback in my dreams, and wake up elated, but as I rub the sleep out of my eyes it's overcome by this ache in my stomach. Kind of a fear and misery with no real base, just a persistent and defiant continuity. 

Now, even if he tells me he loves me and wants to keep me, the words can't penetrate me. I wan't them to, terribly; I want to feel that and be confident of it, but the fear and discomfort has built up such an immense and resilient endoskeleton of distrust that my pining, delicate entrailles can't be reached or soothed by words.

On top of this, the IUD is upon me any day now, and the internet has terrified me with stories of uncomfortable sex, spotting, and worst of all, the discovery that my dad's first wife had one, got an infection, and was left sterile in the aftermath.

This anxiety for the new presence in my most delicate and intimate areas plus the fear for my relationship has left me awake and weeping several consecutive nights now.

I know love is a gamble. A leap, a courageous and sometimes risky investment. You've got to take that part of you that you've worked on all your life, the most sensitive, delicate, and passionate chunk of you and place it on the table. The $1000 chip we've spent our lives creating in the hopes that we'll win big. History tells us that the stakes are against us and, in all likelihood, that precious chunk of yourself you've given to someone else is gonna get swept away. 

When so much is on the table, how do we conquer the fear, and enjoy the game?

True

People will tell you that infatuation, lust, and love are not the same things. Last night I heard that "the only true love is unrequited." While growing up and learning love from barbies to disney, from crushes to dating and dating to relationships, I've resolved that there is one kind of love, to many kind of loves, and lastly, no two kinds of love that are alike. 

The one that most of us are familiar with is butterflies and infatuation. My previous experiences with this engulfing sensation all had me convinced that I was in love.  

Here, once again in Hawaii and with my boyfriend far away on the other side of the Earth in France, I noticed a new feeling. While looking at his face on my computer screen, as is the only way for me to see him during our separation, there was no fluttering or tightening in my throat, but instead a deep warming purr, as though someone had strung a steal chord from my collar bone to my pelvis, running through my core, and struck it. 

Is it really fair to say that one kind of love, infatuation, lust, obsession, friendship, domestic, forbidden, unrequited, is any more real than any other? While each offers a new sensation or new feeling as you experience growing attached to another human being, perhaps what is most important is finding the one that is right for you- not the one that is "real."

Pliancy and Weakness

Today as I dried dishes in the cafe, gritting my teeth and grumbling because I am neither employee nor slave but treated as both, a plain looking girl, my age, received a wedding gift across the table. She had been married in Paris a week before.

My heart shrunk and sank to the back of my chest. The same thing had happened several weeks ago when watching the film The White Ribbon. The subtitles read: "That I would soon call this beloved creature my wife filled me with such elation.." the rest escapes me, but not the tightening in my chest. I kept repeating the words to myself the week through.

I know, I know. Every independent, self proclaimed woman of modernity and a true sense of self should be too wise to whimper and whine for marriage. But there is no secret to this anymore: I'm a young soul. In fact I'm firmly convinced that this is my first go at being a human, (if one is to believe such things) and was more likely drifting space dust in my last incarnation than anything dealing with human relationships and the task of loving one's self. I cry at music, laugh and clap at a bird taking a bath, blow every dandelion, am wildly superstitious and believe everything the first time I hear it.  The result is I'm a slave to my biology. Jealously lays me on the floor boards and insecurity walks all over me like a throw rug while my mind hasn't the vaguest idea how to conquer either.

Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being, which leads me to believe my soul is squirming in a state of infancy. Long story short, I want desperately to be loved deeply, and, perhaps more over, with constant affirmation. I want someone to want to spend the rest of their life with me, and to prove it with paperwork. 

My Life and My Love are on Opposite Sides of the Planet Earth.

It's kinda weird that even after 14 months since this blog's birth and my plunge into Europe, I've neglected to address my most prevalent problem in my franco-phonic home away from home. Loneliness. While there have been some notable names who've dropped in an out of the picture, I've found the language barrier and lack of employment and/or physical student body have left me, for the most part, pining away in solitude in my attic apartment. Wondering at a loss what places I have to go, people I have to see, etc. Since meeting and falling in love with TMI I've become uncomfortably dependent on his company; passing my days waiting for him to come home, languishing alone and without motivation.

Certainly, things have got to change. TMI, no matter how much I love him, can't be worth spending my life waiting around. I know I should go back to Hawaii or the West coast and start a life there, I know it.. But leaving TMI would be like slowly chiseling through my own arm with a pocket knife- like that guy who was stuck in a ravine with his arm pinned under a boulder for several days. How do I do that?! Sack up and take the ouch, or stick it out for love? I wish option two were the answer but honestly I know I couldn't go another month, let alone nine, as we've been planning, like this. So I should go. But the little voice inside me yells "no, no! don't do it! He's the one you idiot, don't give him up for anything!!"

If only he'd made the compromise I was counting on and taken an internship in the Napa valley, these questions wouldn't be writhing around in my brain. Well, granted, at least I have something to think and complain about, and instructional videos on how to be lonely.

What's it Worth?

I'm sitting and sniveling in my best girl-friend's bed in San Francisco, preparing for my 11 hour flight back to France. I am sick, true to form: I manage to be heroically resilient against cold and flu until a flight shows up within the 24 hour range. -Then I'm seemingly set upon by throat-seizing microbes. I was sick on the way over and it looks like I'll be sick on the way back.

But this isn't what I want to complain out. I want to complain that I'm on the verge of devastated because this week is the last week my significant other has to find and secure a vineyard on the West coast for his 6 month internship arriving this summer. If he doesn't manage, he'll have to get one in France. Meaning, if I want to stay with him, I may have to move to a smaller town, miss my brother's wedding and Christmas with the family yet again to lead a moderately lonely life abroad. -Especially if I only get to see my guy on weekends.

Naturally, I'm apprehensive about staying by his side. Yes, I love France, but I'll have to fight the visa battle again and endure our shared social life which honestly, makes me cringe. I don't really enjoy his wine student contemporaries and facing another 6 months of choosing between late nights with them or staying home lonely depresses me.

But I love him. Do I somehow go home and enjoy the 4 months we have together, then when the internship starts, pack up with a straight face and leave? Go to the states, or Hawaii with my family, and plot out a new future without him? Or do I figure love is worth everything, which I'm beginning to think it is, and stay?

p.s: if you haven't all ready, please remember to Fight for the Phoque, and send a message to the Canadian prime minister.

You Say Tomato and I Say Tomahto, lets call the whole thing off

He finished it in a day. HE devoured it. And here I am trudging through it critically like moving through a mud pit in a wedding gown. Can we love each other but not love the same things? How eager we are to say “you're the one,” "you are my other half,” and “we are made for each other,” but if humans have learned anything from the drunken state of love isn’t it that it is completely lacking in any kind of verisimilitude? Ruled by a blinding and overwhelming human desire to be needed; to be loved? So much so in fact, that anyone, (anyone suitably attractive and willing to feed you an “I love you” on a regular basis can be transformed under your rosy outlook into a soul mate? Into “the one?” I remember personally being completely convinced that someone absolutely inside-and-out-wrong for me was exactly what I wanted in a mate. -Until I was somehow and thankfully shaken out of it.

My past experiences have left me tirelessly suspicious of love. Yes: for the past 9 months I have been engulfed in complete mutual obsession. Wild jealousy, monumental sexual passion, and such sincere joy and elation just from the presence, touch, and intimacy with another person that I can’t POSSIBLY expect to be thinking straight. Is liking the same authors important? Is just liking literature enough? The same music? Food? Fashion? Social lifestyle?? What are the essentials and what are the trivials that tell a person if they’ve found the one or if they just want to believe that they’ve found the one?

Every day I tell myself (and we tell each other) that we’re made for one another. That we want to be together for the rest of our lives. My expectations are thus enormous and being let down in even the smallest way stings like a fresh cut and makes me want to cry; call the whole thing off.

Do our likes and dislikes delineate the success of our relationship?

Self Sabotage

I have a perfect relationship, and it deserves care and a lot of optimism. HOWEVER: there is an insecure and ugly side of me that likes to pop up out of the blue and completely incapacitate me with negativity and a seemingly hell bent goal to kill my prefect relationship. I can convince myself that I'm a total waste of space. I feel jealous. I fight myself in an effort to believe that I don't love him. I shrug away when he touches me. It's like I'm so exhausted from living under the fear of loosing him I'd rather just pull the plug and get it over with. Like choosing suicide instead of waiting for an unavoidable death asteroid or planet collision. (which, just for the record, I would TOTALLY wait for.)

Last night we were out late at a friend's and I was in such an inexplicable CHOKE HOLD of depression that I was struggling to not cry in front of all of his friends and was trying to pass off watery eyes as a result of laughing. TMI of course was totally aware of this and when we got home I cried because I was both embarrassed and bewildered by my body's chemical crazyness and my inability to control it. I wanted TMI to understand that it wasn't him, but in these episodes, especially when exacerbated by alcohol, I can't manage to communicate anything rational. His response was slaying me with guilt by crying and insisting that he tries so hard,(which he does: telling me 100 times plus every day that I'm the world's most beautiful woman, that he loves me more than anything, that he wants to spend his life with me, etc: more than anyone really deserves and certainly enough to keep someone secure in a relationship)and that he still can't seem to make me happy and comfortable. He was understandably exhausted. I know my happiness is not his responsibility; and frankly I think my unhappiness has nothing to do with him.

It's wickedly selfish, especially since I'm hurting the man I love by being so self involved; even if the self involved thoughts are intensely unflattering ones. It would break my heart if I lost him. He's perfect for me; he's the one, but the same part of me that wants to tell me that I'm inadequate also wants to be cruel to him and persuade him to leave me.

I've read other people complaining about similar relationship dysfunctions and even know someone who's infamous for driving away partners with self sabotage. I have no respect for it and TMI doesn't deserve to be a victim of it.

Fashionably Punctual

So like a woman to trade a bit comfort for beauty. Prague may be replaced with Brussels and the new coat was replaced by the below Free People party dress. There's a Christmas dinner party this weekend and it is my intention to be absolutely, ridiculously, gorgeous. So I sacrificed a bit of winter insolation and emptied my Christmas present funds on this dress; let's just pray that it get's here before this weekend. Seriously, if it shows up on Monday and misses the party I'm apt to kill someone.

Also I'd like to mention that TMI and I are now living together. ..And have been for some 4+ weeks. The move-in is traditionally a big relationship milestone, and usually is, if you remember to pop the "let's live together" question, but in our case it sort of went unnoticed until his mail started showing up in my box. We share a laundry basket, brush our teeth together, and take turns coming home to one another and kissing each other good bye in the mornings. It's perfect; and I'm actually startled by how happy I am.

While sometimes loving a human can be a scary thing, (loving a cat or a pair of shoes doesn't bear the threat of a change of heart,) I feel an ever-growing sense of gratitude and, cheesy as it sounds, awe; amazement that I could ever have been this lucky. And as I happily complete the transformation from single to settled, I can only hope that my luck lasts. ..Be it for lasting love, or a just a dress in the mail.

Snow

Well, after all that scurrying and worrying, the plans have changed and yet a few more French adventures (and naps and sex and boredom and challenges) lie ahead. The airline prices never went down and I wasn't able to cushion my emotional turmoil with a return plan before Christmas, so it appears I will be in France with TMI and his family after all. It will be my first Christmas without warm Hawaii sand and temperate outdoor dinner parties, and the consequential homesick of this reality has been pelting me like a sudden hail storm, but the good news: I will be here until February and thus have time to endure necessary French exams, scary phone interviews, and essay writing that could get me into a Masters program here in Dijon; granting me the ever sought after student visa and means to come back to the country I love. This means I can weather the 18 hours of flight time without attempting lost-love-themed suicide in the bathroom.

So this means my first Christmas day with my significant other's family, possibly a New Year's adventure in Prague, (which could require all night partying, death, and sharing a hostle room with 5 French guys) and a ski trip in the Alps. Probably all wrinkle inducing but at least blog material, right?

Last but not least, yesterday I ate raclette with TMI and two of his friends. It's this crazy grill + cheese melter thing that you put charcuterie and maybe mushrooms on while cheese melts- than you sort of pile it all together on potatoes on your plate in one big fat festival of social weight gain. I don't know if it was the comfort food or just common sense, but Mr. J finally eased off a bit and the happiness that's supposed to come from good love seems to be peeking out from all that icy insecurity and worry. There's still a lot of snow shoveling to do, I mean, but hey at least there's hope.

More Than Love

"I wish you had a favorite beauty spot that you loved secretly because it was on a hidden bit that nobody else could see"

-The Nicest Thing

I am deeply in love. But things are chemically and mentally difficult for me. Last night I went out and attempted to be social with TMI and his friends; we danced and laughed and drank and I desperately sublimated the fact that two of the girls we were passing the night ever so amicably with were previous persons of interest in TMI's physical life. Not. So. Easy.

We were up most of the night, slept for some 3 hours, then awoke in the morning to catch a train to a wine tasting with the same gang. I managed to stay for 6 hours before my feet, exhaustion, and the sight of the rear end of a previous squeeze of TMI drove me away. I tagged along with a couple leaving early and left him with his friends at the event, where they remain still.

I'm so exhausted and just want to go to sleep- but they plan to have a party at one of the girls' apartments tonight starting at 11:30 and going till who knows when. I seriously don't have the physical stamina for this kind of thing. I hate retreating and leaving my boyfriend to those I am jealous of for the whole night while I cower at home, but I also hate to feel like I need to make myself uncomfortable just to prove something / be fabulous when I'm not feeling fabulous to keep my partner.

Sometimes I worry I love his love more than I love him; maybe even more than I love myself.

The One's Shelf Life

The work visa fell like a stone giant and crushed beneath it lay the quivering remains of my hope for coming back to France. Last night I had to look at TMI and know that we had a finite number of kisses between us; a dwindling number of times I would open my eyes to his in the morning.

Of course, I cried like life was a lost cause long into the night and again this morning. It doesn't help that I'm visiting with TMI's family in the South, wanting to be well liked but sitting silent at each meal with a trembling lip.

Hurled yet again into post-graduate-obscurity. I hate not having a path, and for a few horrific moments I didn't even know what hemisphere I was going to commence my life as a hopeless hobo in.

Fortunately, this afternoon, TMI took a determined eye to the internet and found me some Masters programs I could pursue here in France, assuming that my French were good enough and that I could find the money. There are none in the city of Dijon, so we would only see one another on the weekends, and I wouldn't be starting until September of next year; meaning 9 months of separation.

Does love, realistically, have that sort of endurance? I mean everything has a shelf life, right? This is the one you guys; this is the one I want to make babies with and wake up to every morning. The one and only one I want to kiss before brushing teeth or feel smooshed against me when I'm falling asleep. This is a scary time and I want to know: can I put the One on the shelf, and does it have to hurt this much?

Dreams After Breakfast

It's in those moments when, tossing in bed at 5am because of a fever or menstrual cramps or nightmares or headaches or any other self-pity inducing symptoms, and your significant other, even though they too are trying to sleep and probably bothered by your restlessness, rolls over and pulls you close to their body, coos sympathetically and kisses your nose, that any doubt melts like the memory of your dreams after breakfast.

Is it normal to doubt when the words "I love you" are flying out of your mouth 100 times a day? I seem to be irreversibly prone to wonder if really I'm not being deluded by insecurity, good looks, soft skin, etc, and I worry that I shouldn't dare make any sacrifices for what my young brain thinks is love.

And yet, last night, feeling totally sorry for myself since I'm on some pretty heavy antibiotics to fight my endless onslaught of urinary tract infections (awesome!) which make my skin rosy red as I roll around with fever all night; plus my boobs are hurting like crazy because of my contraceptives, while expecting TMI to be totally pissed off with my tossing and turning, he comforted me so effectively that I experienced a moment of complete doubtless bliss. And I'll be honest, its been happening a lot.

So what's with the second guessing?

I'm considering staying here with TMI's family for Christmas this year to put off our dreaded separation and give me more time to move out of my little apartment. But, it would be my first Christmas away from my family in the Hawaiian islands, and let me tell you, I am a serious family girl. And while all young adults face that first Christmas without their immediate family, my parents are older than most, and, my Robert-Redford-sailing-legend of a father had a difficult year with skin cancer. My family Christmases no longer seem like a forever given.

I said it in the post before last and I'll say it again: how much is love really worth these days? There are sacrifices on both ends of my plane ride and at present I don't know which is worth being more panicked about.

After some restless hours of light sleep in the morning, I awoke in a sweat, totally terrified. Nightmares. ..But by the time I sat up I'd forgotten them.

Worry Never Saps Tomorrow of its Sorrow...

My new haircut is SO BAD I seriously can't go outside or see my boyfriend. I've never felt so terrible about my appearance. The hair stylist literally mugged me. Drive by hair thievery. My bangs had gotten just a little too long, and, even though I still thought they looked great, I decided to go in just to have them neatened and she just shwacked them right off over my eyebrows like a thick hedge.

I'm bed (and hat) ridden with grief.

In actual news my mom leaves France in three days which will grant me the freedom to go back to work in the French Jesus-freak cafe as well as recommence with sex in my apartment, but I suspect a brief and possibly lonely adjustment period to motherlessness.

Also, I'm now only two months away from leaving France to return to Hawaii for Christmas. It could be a good-bye-forever with the man I love. Which I know for him is equally as daunting because in a gesture sweeter than I think any living man today is capable of, he asked if my mother would "mind" if he married me. I love TMI: but marrying me to help keep me in France by solving my visa problems would just feel like taking advantage of him. And, just to kick a dead horse, I'll say the words one more time: exceptionally too young.

None the less he hasn't seen this hair cut yet and it may well be the end of our relationship. I'm not sure I even have the guts to see him until they grow back; which may as well be when I'm leaving France.

My future is so tangled up I don't even know where to begin to make sense of it. The whole project seems like turning a scrambled egg into a hard boiled one. Coming back to France will be a huge and timely undertaking; other life paths include the West coast, graduate school, and old college roommates.

How much is love worth these days, anyway?

The Ink Well (and everything to do with forever)

Nothing good lasts forever, or, so they say. For this reason, love is sometimes described as a flower which blooms, wilts, and, if you're going to get really poetic about it and you happen to be a believer in lasting love, you may also allude to the ability to press them and keep them long after they've died.

What I was thinking today, however, is that maybe the myth of eternal love is more like an ink pen. In the beginning you have to give it a push by dragging it around to get it going, then suddenly you have a nice, satisfying black flow that can carry you along silky smooth for months; maybe longer if you're lucky. But, in the end, it doesn't matter how much you "work at it" or promise pen fidelity, because when the line starts getting dry, you can bet your buttons you'll be reaching for the newer model and the one in your hand has its days numbered.

These stubbornly pessimistic thoughts have a habit of ruining otherwise perfectly good evenings with TMI. We've been discussing efforts to get me back to France after Christmas in Hawaii and getting an apartment together. ..An incredibly elating thought, and yet the sacrifice would be my friends and my family. Placing myself scquarely opposite on the globe from my nearest and dearest which have nothing to to with sex or ink and everything to do with forever.

But, on the other hand, friends fall in love and become less available as their significant other becomes more significant. The temptation to remain forever single could leave me lonely surrounded by friends in love.

I know the obvious solution simile: if you really like the pen, you can buy more ink. But what's the real life equivalent of the inkwell? Could something so idealistic possibly exist? And for something so uncertain, how can I ever really know if it's worth the sacrifice?

The End is in Sight

After three weeks of not having TMI home with me in Dijon, he is at last making his triumphant return to my longing arms tomorrow afternoon. (With several cases of wine, rumor has it.) But, instead of feeling excited and giddy, I find myself feeling increasingly miserable; loosing sleep, in fact. Amazingly, after a lighting fast 8 months in France, Christmas is already appearing on the horizon and thus bringing with it the mandatory plane tickets to return me to the islands and to my family.

TMI is obligated to stay in Dijon at least another two years to finish his analog studies. My visa is up in February and without money or a well paying job which in turn requires the miraculous miracle of a French work visa, coming back to France would be...difficult.

Today, coincidentally and for the first time, I allowed myself to admit to friends and family and, perhaps more importantly, to myself, that I am in love. And I am scared. Scared out of mind about enduring a last night with TMI. The alarm the morning I have to drag myself out of his arms and somehow out the door; to the train station and through the airport terminals alone; knowing that I have three days and half a globe to put between me and the man I love. Not to mention the incredible menace of facing the obscurity of responsibility and adulthood in which I have virtually NO DIRECTION.

There's a part me that still bitterly denies the existence of true and/or lasting love. Maybe it's for the best that TMI and I execute our relationship at the height of its youth and fervor instead of letting it get old and stale. It's a meaningful union (I'm ashamed it took me so long to realize it) and maybe it deserves better than to cool off in drawn-out domestication. It deserves tears and misery. Die young and face the history books with eternal youth, right?

The Agony of Andouillette

Last Thursday I was suddenly informed that I could hop a train Friday evening and spend the weekend with TMI. Since I had been suffering some serious intimacy and sexual withdrawals I was very happy to spend the 30 Euros on a ticket and head into the country.

TMI is staying in an old run down boarding house with two other boys also finishing their summer internships. As one can imagine, the old house habited by two 20 something boys and one shy (and very much the third wheel) 18 year old, was a complete disaster. Old sausages hung on window clasps, socks were balled up on the kitchen counter, a loaf of bread with a collection of cutlery stabbed into it was stuffed in the freezer, an enormous murdered arachnid terrorized the bathroom floor, and a single vegetable was no where to be found in the whole house.

Despite all this I was lovingly received, lovingly cuddled, cared for and made love to with the utmost attentiveness for most of my stay; and while the boys worked I took refuge in TMI's bedroom with a book.

The second night some Dijonaise friends drove out and we had a barebeque. I ate something a little too French and mixed it with a little too much wine and spent the second half of the night puking miserably in the bathroom, at this point sort of befriending the huge dead spider at the toilet side.

Despite all of this it was predominantly pleasant and saturated with sentimentality. I don't think I've ever been loved the way I feel I am now. -Even with my relationship which lasted years. Maybe every love is different? Or maybe I'm just learning how to pick em' and starting to hit a little closer to home? One can hope.