3 is the loneliest number

Three.

Three often means two plus one.

I have two friends I met my first year of "junior high" for lack of a better word, when I was ten. We remained in the same class until I was 15, and then they both went towards economics and then prepared the entrance exam for business school, and I went towards literature.

French school system.

I was not a very gregarious child, and had very few friends. My dream, from the age of 10 onwards, was to be someone's best friend. In that internet-less age, best friends called each other every evening on the house phone, and annoyed their parents expecting calls. Best friends had sleep-overs. Best friends could bond against the world.

This never really happened for me. Like the booty call who hopes against all odds that he/she will become the official partner, I spend a lot of time daydreaming about my potential best friend-making moves. Should I be funnier? Should I have cuter clothes?

When I finally got close friends, it never felt that I was the one. My two closest friends and I formed a trio, an uncomfortable one at times. I will never forget a trip to Vienna where I felt completely left out and cried myself to sleep every night. I was a very immature 17.

I don't know why the moniker best friend was so important to me. Now I have many friends, all important for me, all wonderful, and I laugh at my past self for having set so much store on a label. How insecure. How silly. No one can be everything to someone.

Now my two oldest friends are going back to school together. Like when we were 15, they will be laughing about teachers, sharing in-jokes about fellow students, spending hours in the same classroom. I suddenly realised this a few days ago and thought "How nice for them."
Then I thought "Damn it. 2+ 1 AGAIN?"

And I call myself an adult.

I hosted a stew party (and I liked it)

Or should it be, lived to tell the tale.

I wanted to reciprocate all the kind invitations I've got these past few months so I invited sixty people to my parents' house, coaxing them with the sweet, fragrant promise of stew (vegetarian and goulash), masses of cheese and homemade cookies. Twenty-five people accepted and since I am still a student, still at the stage where forcing people to sit on the floor does not automatically mean dislocated disks or terrible pain, and since I appear to be completely wacked-out insane , I thought this would work out quite well.

Being a hostess is hard, y'all. Not only are you supposed to slave to make your place look nice, cook batches of food for famished and often allergy-ridden ingrates, but you are then to enjoy your own party, or at least, make it look effortless. This three-tier cream cake with sugar rosebuds? Oh, it's so easy to bake! That Ming vase your kid just wrecked? Just an annoying knick-knack that was a pain to dust. Oooh, look: someone is lonely and bored in a corner of the living-room! Must entertain them! You then abandon Promising Hot Man and go talk to Shy Young Lady while your erstwhile prospect goes away.

Plus we had the following situation: I invited people from my new university and old friends together. As we all know, this doesn't always work out. The old friends arrive full of inside-jokes, the new ones want to talk about classes the old ones don't know anything about, and you're in the middle, trying to pelt new conversation topics at people randomly, hoping one will stick. This usually means a newsworthy topic which annoys half your guests and creates a screaming match.

We also had my ex-boyfriend turned best friend and my oldest friend (thirteen years, people) meeting my Fling for the first time.

A recipe for disaster, you say. I was curiously calm during the whole thing, especially considering that I was fresh off the Eurostar, so to speak. I made huge amounts of food. I bought amazing cheese. I baked cookies (but, ahem, not from scratch. Give me a break! I was tired!). I opened the wine bottles to let them breathe. And then I put on clean trousers, smudged my eyeliner and waited for people to come.

It went really well. Everyone loved the party, and I did not turn into a Tazmanian Hostess, whirling around snatching plates from people, forcing dessert on everyone and laughing in a manic way. "HAVE SOME MORE? NO? ARE YOU SURE? HAHAHAHA!"

Magic moments of being a grown-up party-person:

* The wine talk. People talk about wine, instead of comparing cheap beer experiences. We're OLD.
*Someone asked me if they could smoke pot in my apartment and I said no problem. No one wanted to share though.
*No one started necking in my bathroom.
*No one robbed me.
*No one drunkenly slow-danced and then passed out into a coma.

OLD.

I am officially a hostess.

Cambridge and London (snippets)

Hello Cambridge! you are so pretty. Let me take somber and depressing snapshots of you.

What can I say, I love food, and I love sweets, so instead of taking nice pictures of buildings, I took pictures of the fudge shop.

Cambridge, the Bridge of Sighs.

So I'm in the Eurostar station, coming home after a lot of work, and some fun too. I went to London to do library research in the Quaker library, which is amazingly quaint, filled with sweet and insane people doing research as well, and filled with the rythmic sound of people turning pages at the same time. The way I like it, baby. And in the evening I have nice dinners with friends who bore with my endless prattling. When you spend 7 hours a day writing, you feel loquacious, you really do. You also seem to think that your arcane subject is FASCINATING. I apologize to my friends, but that's what you risk when you get yourself an over-enthusiastic multitasker pal.

But it wasn't all work. I popped into Cambridge to spend the weekend with my friends N and Am, cuddled baby Sym, ate so much food (damn those triple chocolate butter Belgian biscuits from Sainsbury's) and slept. I needed a break. And my friends made me feel like a Wonderful Butter Biscuit of a Girl.

Those of you who've exchanged emails would have an inkling about why I like anything Holmes. Inside joke!

Can you tell I'm a bit frantic/happy? The internet connection here is prehistoric so expect more pictures at a later date. I'm crossing the Channel back to classes and WORKWORKWORK, but all in all, I feel regenerated. It's all in the fudge, really.

Blue skies are here, at last

We met at a wedding. I was jetlagged, he was drunk. I fell for him, hard, but he lived in Sweden, I lived in America, he was recovering from a break-up, I was in a failing relationship. It wasn’t very promising.
One evening in Chicago, I sent him a Facebook message telling him how I felt. He answered. And how. He managed to slip messages in my pockets, my choir books, in my passport, without my twigging how he had enlisted the people I knew there. I sent him a package. He sent me the most beautiful postcard/letters from his trip to Europe, filled with people and stories and lust for life. In May I went to Sydney to visit him. He fed me almond croissants on Bondi Beach, the rising sun scorching my white cheeks. He fell in love with me.
By this time I was a complete mess. It took a few months to go home, break up with my boyfriend, fail to complete my masters’ paper, and live at my mother's house, depressed and useless. X came to stay with me in Paris. I was still a mess. I clung to him like a lifesaver. He made me happy. Then my father got sick and spent eight months in the hospital. He almost died for four of them. X held my hand and gave me the best hugs. He also kicked my arse and made me finish my paper. He proof-read it for hours on end, correcting it over and over again. I sent it in, got a good grade. He got a scholarship to Lyon so we could live together for at least a year. I found us an apartment. We were happy. Then he wasn't. At first it was all cheese and concerts and giggles and being young and in love. I studied for my state exam, he worked on his research. Then he fell out of love with me. It broke my heart.
He had been through a lot during the year and a half we’d lived together.
So had I, in an entirely different way.
It was hard to know what would happen. During those first weeks of hell, it felt as if all the bitterness, anger and sadness that come with breakups would consume me and him, and destroy whatever bond we had. I hated seeing myself through his eyes, as a clingy neurotic mess. He didn't respect my studies. I didn't accept his quarter-life crisis, as he called it. He bought a new bike and flirted with a young thing. Typical, I thought, before breaking down some more. I did my best, and so did he. We never said the unforgivable. We tried to respect each other. As soon as my classes were over, I moved back to Paris, I passed my exam with flying colors; he got a great grant to do his PhD. We stopped talking for a month. All this feels a long time ago.
It took seven months. But I know I’m over it.
I was in the bus and one of our songs came on. A song we had both listened to when the other was away, far, when we were doing the long distance thing, writing desperate passionate emails every day, when we were so in love. And I didn’t cry. I smiled. I remembered the almond croissants on the beach, and the first time he roller-skated with me, and our trip to Barcelona and how he told me he was in love with me in front of the Sydney Opera House.
I remembered all the good things. All the negative things are gone. And today I am over the breakup, and X and I are friends. Good friends. I have so much to thank him for and I am truly grateful for every wonderful hour we spent together as a couple. I’m happy to have survived this as best I could and I am happy that he is over it too.
I started this blog as therapy for the breakup. Now it has become something else, I’m not sure what. And I have become someone else too, and I don’t mind not knowing who I could be. If X taught me something over the years, it’s that all trips are more fun when the unexpected and the strange happen. I feel strong and brave and ready for time on my own, happy to take care of myself and to be single.
I’m so thankful for my family, my friends, my blogmates. You’ve helped so much. And thank you, X, for being my friend. And for making me laugh every time I see you. I care for you very much indeed.

Overanalyse this!

« What’s the use of being overanalytical about everything ? What’s the use of being so emotional ? »
I must have heard this a million times in my life, and it is always a source of mingled irritation and amusement. I am very sensitive to people’s moods and behaviours. I don’t react to things because it’s useful-I just do. I like understanding the way people act. I like wondering what’s the link between a friend’s endless partying and the fact that her father has remarried. I like investigating mentally: why do I suddenly feel sad about something?

I’ll be the first to admit that this overanalytical behaviour is probably a secondary effect of my analysis. When you are getting over depression, you are taught to identify “triggers” that you can then work around. Say you are always depressed after listening to Malher symphonies (check) or after seeing a critical family member, you’ll avoid these triggers when particularly vulnerable.

Being overanalytical also has some social advantages for someone as shy as I am; I’ve become quite adept at predicting people’s reactions (once I know them a bit, obviously), and this avoids awkwardness. Would I be better off by just asking :”What’s wrong?” Often, yes. I’ve been trying actually to stop making projections and just ask when I’m not sure of why someone is angry/sad/perplexed. Being straightforward is also a time saver, since you avoid the endless handwringing of the overanalytical species.

But let me defend my kind: many “straightforward” people are not good at defining what ails them, or how they are affected by events, because they aren’t prone to overanalysis. They’ll just try to solve the problem. It’s much more difficult to solve a problem the source of which is unclear. Just as frequently as my less emotional friends have helped me muddle through a situation by asking clear questions and underlining my overreactions, I have been able to reciprocate by explaining the emotional undercurrents of an argument. As much as I sometimes wish I could be a hermit, we are a social species. We can’t rely on others to behave the way we would. Only our own reactions make sense to us. My sad habit of always wondering why, where and when has helped me be more respectful of people’s choices, especially when they go against my own reactions or beliefs.

This being said, it’s often a relief to me when I spend time with people who are blunt and to the purpose. They pull me out of my own head, and laugh at my interpretations of their behaviour. But in the end, little do they know that for all my histrionics, I am far more accepting of their idiosyncrasies than they could ever imagine.

Disaster movies

I have lowbrow tastes.
Let me rephrase that: I love trashy movies. Especially disaster movies. The kind where a divorced father reclaims the love of his children by saving them during the apocalypse/an alien invasion/underwater monster attacks etc. The kind where strippers with a heart of gold rescue stray puppies or adorable little girls. The kind where you always have a black president/pilot/general/secretary of state to make up for the stereotypical wisecracking black single mother.

The kind where only American people matter, because although you always see CNN reporting on foreign countries the heroes are American and the American president always saves the day. I'd like to say here that Transformers 2 shows the Eiffel Tower being wrecked IN THE WRONG PART OF PARIS. Michael Bay? It's called research.

To complete my enjoyment, there must be many scenes in the Pentagon, with computers and giant screens showing trajectories. Someone picks up a phone and whispers impressively:"The President on line 1."

So 2012 should be right up my alley. Disaster movie directed by Roland Independance Day Emmerich. The world is destroyed because of a vicious Mayan prediction and unscientific science babble. RUN, people, RUN!

On the other hand, I went with my bestie M. to see a wonderful franco-russian movie called "Le Concert", about a bunch of Russian musicians who were fired from the Bolchoï under Brejnev who trick their way to Paris to play Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. It was broad comedy. Russians and Frenchies were painted with a heavy brush. It was about how music brings us together, a hokey message. However, it was moving and uplifting and funny.

So I won't go to see 2012, because I know the end and all the plot twists. But why not meld the genres? Here's to a disaster movie with loads of CGI about Russian musicians who save the world with a glorious soundtrack.

Can you imagine how wonderful that would be? And maybe Anna Netrebko could have a cameo and sing Puccini for the survivors.

Choices, choices

I hate this armchair, but I try to settle comfortably. I am paying for this, after all.
"So let's pick up where we stopped last week. Why don't you want to have children?"
I look at him. He's scratching his nose, not looking like an inquisitor at all. I smile.
"I don't want anyone to have my genes."
"What's wrong with your genes?"
"I'm chronically depressed." I wave an airy hand. And all that. I also have really bad blood circulation and asthma. But those don't count. They aren't life-threatening. They don't make you want to die. Or try to die.
"Do you believe depression is genetic?"
"I believe that it is, yes. And even if it's not, how could I bring up someone if I'm sad a lot? Wouldn't it be unfair on the child?"
I was brought up by someone with addiction. I know what it feels when your love is not enough for someone to change, not enough to make them happy. When you are a child, you don't know happiness is something you make for yourself. You think it's your fault.
"Why do you believe it's genetic?"
"I don't want to believe I had a choice in this."
I didn't choose to be alive. A lot of the time I wish I weren't. I'm stuck here for the best and for the worse. And my best is amazing. And my worse is soul-killing.
"I don't want to believe that I chose depression for myself."
"You've been through a lot."
"No, I haven't. And even if I had, it wouldn't change anything to the fact that it's my responsability to go beyond my bad experiences to make something of myself. If it's something wrong in my genome, my stumbles don't make me feel so guilty."

I choose to not be angry; I choose to forgive and forget, I choose to fight for what I care for.

"Maybe everything is a choice."
"Life isn't."
"Yes it is. You're here. You're choosing to remain alive. You're choosing to see me. You're choosing to get better. Every morning you go running to pump some endorphins in yourself and make yourself happier."
I can't see through my tears.
"Sometimes I feel no one knows what this feels like. How bloody hard it is. That no one cares."
"Don't you think I care?"
"I don't know."
My family cares. My friends care. But in the end, the shrink is right.

I choose this struggle, and I will run again tomorrow, and I'll think of the things I love and am passionate about. I'll see my friends and family. I'll cuddle with the cats and make really stupid jokes.

Whatever is coming, I may not be ready, but I choose to pretend I am. Give it to me, and watch me take it.

I choose to be a grown-up.

A moment of bliss

Today, or is it yesterday, I heard a wonderful concert. José van Dam sung a beautiful cycle of Schumann lieder, which got me crying after about five minutes. There's something about Schumann, the poetry he chooses, the piano's soft and furious interpretation, the waves of emotion and pain, that gets me every time. Then we had some lovely French chansons. Normally I'm not too fond of French songs, because the lyrics sound so corny. The way people used to speak changed, yet the chansons keep the same distribution of syllables over the notes. It's slightly perturbing when you are trying to listen to the music. But here the poetry was by Baudelaire or Verlaine, so you're pretty much enjoying the best of French poetry.
He concluded with Poulenc's cycle of bawdy Renaissance songs. Watching van Dam, who will always be for me the most dashing Leporello, winks and makes suggestive gestures while the audience howl with laughter was a great moment indeed.
So I cried, I laughed, and I clapped my hands raw.

I was sitting next to X. We were enjoying it together, as friends. Music has always been something we both love intensely, though in entirely different ways. (He's never liked Baroque so much either). But it was part of the pleasure to be there with him, after all that we've been through together, building a new chapter in our lives, yet still able to smile at each other or mistily grin when we were moved. Here is a man who held my hand when my father was terribly sick for months on end. Here is a man who taught me how to enjoy so many things in life, a good meal with friends, a glass of perfectly dry white wine. And this is the man who once loved me and now cares for me, and wants only the best for me, and who knows that I wish him everything he could possibly want.

So as I cried during the Schumann, I still felt like a very lucky person indeed.

Disguises

I'm wearing my grown-up dress. It's got a big skirt and a slim top, and I pair it with a blazer and some heels. I'm wearing this dress because I spent all day whoring myself out at the Sciences Po Business convention, giving my CVs and asking for money.Ironically, this took place in the Paris House of Chemistry. It feels quite strange, that this is a thing people do every day, when they ask for grants, for scholarships, and yet I find it so difficult. Give me!Money! On my shoulder you can see my big bruise-scratch that I got from tripping over a branch while running with the track team. Stupid. I also have a couple of beauties on each of my knees. I'm clumsy. Here's the thing: I've been covering up a lot of my bruises and of my hurts recently. On the one hand I deal with them better if I pretend they're simply not there. On the other, I know that they will hurt even more when I attend to them. Scary prospect. All these thoughts collided when I had lunch with my friend L from Lyon today. I felt a rush of nostalgia for all the good times we had together and I loved hearing about all the things she is doing. She admired my outfit and told me how old-ladyish I looked. I took off my top and showed her some of my AMAZING SPORT injuries. She giggled. "I guess some things don't change." I'm so used to people asking me to change, to always improve, that I found something wonderful in that shedding of my disguise.

days like these

These are busy times.
These are busy years, full of pretense and fun and heartbreak and music and pain and perfection.

And sometimes something happens that makes everything different, and when that something is a someone, somehow it seems like he was there all along.

Happy one month, frog prince! You are a lovely baby and you have an amazing mother. Love to Am!

Post-natal Depression

My dearest friend A has just had a beautiful baby son (and I don't even like babies!) and fears that she is suffering from post-natal depression.
I had told her during her pregnancy that my mother had had an awful time after giving birth to me. This being 23 years ago, PND was not commonly diagnosed and mothers who did not instantly bond with their children were judged by the doctors treating them and were seldom sent to see a mental health provider. Symeon is only two weeks old, and A is already reaching out to her friends asking for pointers and helpful advice.
My heart bleeds for her. I've been through depression and I can't imagine the strain of having to care for a new-born while coping with the horrendous backlash of emotional distress depression brings in its midst. However, I am glad that I told her about it and that she is able to ask for help. Instead of making mothers feel guilty about how they feel, we should always try to help them in this time of need.

Instead of constantly labelling women "emotional", "irrational" or "hysterical", can't we just acknowledge the diversity of experiences we can feel? Science has too often reduced us to the sum of our (private) parts; I strongly applaud the new transparency that enables us to understand how we feel.

Now if only the Scientologists would shut up...

healing

Starting to heal...Starting to enjoy spinach leaves dipped in lentils, to smile at children in the street, to enjoy tennis, to feel guilty about not working, to look forward to shopping for sunglasses because summer is approaching...
I know the pain will come back but for now I can bask in this feeling of happiness and enjoy it for what it is worth:
everything.
Yelena sent me an email and Maruska had lunch with me and I feel surrounded and loved.
Thanks people.

my sister's back!

My sister has just returned from the States and she is in amazing shape. She looks beautiful and happy, and even overjoyed to be home with her boring family. She's a force of nature, is J, and I can't wait to gossip sarcastically with her, sample her new music collection and be scolded by her. After a leisurely jog this morning, I managed to get breakfast down and am looking forward to lunch...
I'm feeling better already.
Had a nice text message from Yelena, and I am very glad she will remain my friend. I like her enormously. We can meet up in Paris and have some nice girly lunches. Yay for new friends!
Off to Milton, with a real smile on my face.

Good

X and I had a nice talk last night. I managed to let him express himself, as oppposed to the usual sara-crapfest. Holding him, stroking his hair, I felt all the love I have for him become concern, not a selfish concern, but a true one, one made of years of friendship that transcend love and lust. Watching his huddled body, I no longer saw the ghost of Rebound Fuck all over him: he was himself, and I was there, and I felt privilegied to be there for him, to tell him that he needed to reaffirm what he wanted, that he could not get any friends if he didn't know, deep inside, what he wanted to give and how much he wanted to receive.
I have such hopes for him. He is the nicest, most lovable, beautiful man I have known. Right now, before my heart starts breaking again, before my system works overtime to get rid of him, of all the complicated emotions he stirs in my bruised body, I can revel in knowing that maybe one day, in months or in years, we will be there for each other, and be happy for each other, and treasure the secret past without neither hope nor bitterness.
To you, my darling X, I wish everything. But now, it is time for me to build my own protections and to find my own answers, it is time to leave him behind and to forget my pain for hours at a time.
To our future friendship, and to my present happiness.
To the future bonds we will have that will neither hurt nor scar.
And to me.
I'll drink to me this morning, before leaving for a week. Strong, beautiful, clever, resourceful, over-emotional, trick-pony, giggling, short-legged, lopsided-smile, imaginative, clinging me.
Happy recovery, dear girl.