Cannes Cannes and the Cups

After finishing work early yesterday, I was flat out exhausted. I think I may be coming down with something - bleh. But before going home to lie on my couch in PJs and convince Copain to watch a chick flick with me, I took a detour to Hema, an amazing Ikea-esque store near Châtelet les Halles. 

Remember my Hema-tights???

I'm not sure why I thought that going to Hema was a good idea - it just makes me want things. And you know how I feel about things.

Bref, I pretty much tortured myself for an hour. All I could think about was how I don't have one water glass that matches another, that I only have one wine glass because all the others are broken, that my bowls are cracked and crappy and that oh my god I hate my apartment and I need all new stuff but I can't have all new stuff until I get a bigger apartment and crap this sucks and I want everything in this store! ... But oh no! What if I buy everything in this store and then I decide not to live in France and then what will I do with it ahhhhh????????

It was enough to send me into an existential tailspin.

I came home with 5 new bath towels, a bag of my favorite spicy rice crackers for food therapy, and some door hook hanger thingys to hang the towels on. Then I washed all the towels and overloaded my teeny apartment with wet towels to dry. 

Thank god Copain was up for a chick flick, otherwise I may have had a complete breakdown.

This morning I woke up with a stuffy nose and ridiculous depression. The girl who has a roof over her head, food to eat, a good job, wonderful friends and family - the girl who has no reason to be depressed, is sad because her cups don't match. And if she does buy cups, it somehow means something about her life here. Wow. Way to be awesome Cannes Cannes.

As I explained my frustration to Copain, the ridiculous tears welling up, he started to sing a little song:

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

Isn't that how it goes? The song your mom used to sing to you?

Doo doo doo dooooo

Chin up!

And get the dust off of you!

How can you be sad when your Copain starts to sing the song that your mom sang to you when you fell down as a child? 

Pick yourself up,

Dust yourself off,

and start all over again!

Even though he got the words all wrong, he got the meaning behind it right. And even though as adults we don't fall down on playgrounds and scrape our knees in the sand, sometimes we do have to pick ourselves up, dust off the silly sadness, and start over again - remembering that our futures are shiny. Right?

And then, just to make me feel better, Copain took out all our cups, lined them up and laughed at the off-the-wall collection that has overtaken our miniature cupboards:

Then he promised me a trip to Ikea. Baby steps, baby steps.

My Relationship With Things

For Christmas, my mom gave me a beautiful wine bottle stopper from Pottery Barn.  It looks vintage-y and fun and when I opened it...I cringed.

Another thing. What am I going to do with another thing?

The bottle stopper stayed in it's cardboard packaging for months after it bringing it back to Paris. I looked at it, I admired it, but I would not, could not, take it out of it's wrapping. 

Flash forward four months later, I was invited to a 100% expat dinner. All of the women there were at some stage of being an American expat abroad - one guest was married with two kids, 20 years into her life in France; two others were between 3 and 8 years along, married to Frenchmen ; another was awaiting French nationality, single; another had arrived only a year ago, in a relationship; and then there was me: 7.5 years in France, Franco-American, domestic partners (PACSed) with Copain.

We spoke Franglais all evening, bonded over common complaints, drank lots of wine and ate a dinner in a way that only expats could: potluck style - we each brought a dish to share.

After our aperitif (we do live in France after all), we sat down to the dinner table (a commodity that I have not had in years due to my tiny Parisian apartment). Immediately, I was taken with how homey the apartment felt - there was a rug, a comfy couch, picture frames, vases, and the table was set with beautiful plates, glasses and cutlery. All I could think was, wow - this girl is 100% here. She is committed to this place and she's (as far as I can tell), okay with it.

And I can't even take a bottle stopper out of its packaging.

You see, I'm deathly afraid of committing 100% to this place, and I guess I feel like the accumulation of things makes it that much harder to leave. What if one day, I want to leave and I have all these things. What will I do then?

As a child, I was a collector of things. I collected shoes (just to put on display!), lovely miniature perfume bottles, interesting photos from magazines that would decorate my wall, coins, rings, old ID cards, pointe shoes...and made a room that was 100% me. (It drove my dad nuts, but he still loves me).

I miss that me.

To be completely honest, I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of not committing. I'm tired of this horrible limbo of being an expat. When do I throw in the towel and be 100% here? When do I stop being afraid of making here my home - with all of the things that I love around me? 

At the dinner party, we all talked about "going home" - home being the US. The guest who had been in France the longest said that it doesn't feel like home anymore; when she takes her family there, they visit like tourists. It felt sad to hear that - how could home ever be anything but just that? But that is the expats lament, I guess...the never-ending feeling that you are never 100% home.