A Hundred Indecisions, a Hundred Visions and Revisions

        At approximately 19h50 this evening, after a long day of nannying, wearing a pair of black wedges and a turquoise, gauzy skirt, I sauntered down the boulevard Saint-Germain to meet Monsieur Lawyer near the Saint-Germain-des-Pres church. My long strolls down these boulevards remind me how much I am in love with this city. Neon lights burn overhead like the beacons of light houses and ripple over damp streets and the city swishes and sways to the rhythms of fog and night. On nights like these, nights where the intersections of boulevards blossom wide like a peony, I never want to leave. 

        Maybe I will leave, maybe I wont. 

        Yesterday I met up with the head of the French department at the University of Chicago at the U of C's Center in Paris, conveniently located near the BNF. These are the repercussions of doing my job and my homework these past for years, launched into full steam ahead mode by the barrage of e-mailing I did this past spring before I was ever in doubt about doing  my PhD: suddenly I have professors, like all these Frenchmen, pursuing me. And likewise, I am equally unprepared. 

         After discussing with this particular professor, I could feel my love for my studies surging within my breast. After I had worked up the courage these past few months to leap into the unknown, so certain and so self assured that I would not mind stepping away from academia. Like an Ex after a bad breakup, I had convinced myself of all that was so negative about academia and that I would be better off without it. 

          Now the indecision comes again. 

          Following my meeting with U of C prof, I had a meeting with my thesis adviser here in France, whom I LOVE to death. She knows I'm in a moment of hesitation and we spent a long time discussing things. I asked her about pursuing my PhD in France. But one thing, especially after talking to many of my professors on both sides of the Atlantic, has become painfully clear: if I want a serious career in academia, I need to repatriate. Not only for funding, but for quality of education. 

           I was hoping I would avoid having to chose between the two loves of my life: France and school.

          This is almost just as hard, if not harder, as choosing between suitors. 

*  *  * 

          I was supposed to see Monsieur Lawyer this past weekend. We had tentatively planned to meet up for Nuit Blanche, but things got messy because I had to work. We were going to meet up after I got off, but then my boss was out and it was late and didn't want to keep him waiting.

          " I can't wait to see you!" he had reiterated all week.

          I was indecisive and not sure of what our chemistry was like. I hadn't been so sure after meeting him for coffee. I asked to reschedule and we did for this evening.

         When I arrived at the metro station, I wasn't entirely enthused. I've been in a broody, pensive mood thinking this whole double country conundrum, stressing about how damn preoccupied about what I'm going to do with my whole life, and then E's shit.

          Then Monsieur Lawyer showed up in a beautiful trench with his briefcase and a smile. We went to Coffee Parisien in the 6th to get dinner and I admit, I was pleasantly surprised. Really surprised. I had a lot of fun, in fact. Seeing as he studies the American government and law, he kicks my assssss when it comes to knowledge of American politics and we talked elections. He also can talk literature, as he's very cultured, and I find this to be a plus.

          "You know, we jurists really like you literary people," he flirted.

          " I know, " I smiled. "My thesis director, her husband, he's a professor of law."

          "And you said you were very similar to her, yes?"

          "Yes. Yes, I am."

         We then discussed everything from my PhD conundrum (Monsieur Lawyer is still all for me doing my PhD here and we discussed complications with that, mainly that I cannot and have not passed the agrégation, the brutal national exam one has to pass to teach at the university level here, even if merely as a graduate student instructor) to my potential naturalization dossier (he insists that I'm doing one and if so, he's going to help me do it because it's complicated enough) to potentially going to the Louvre in the evening on the nights the museum is open late, or, seeing as his father is a clarinetist for the Opera National, an opera. I jumped at the idea.

         "Well, Mademoiselle, I'll take you to the Louvre or the Opera...but only if you're sage!" He offered once he'd walked me home to my blue front doors.

         "What do you define as sage?" I smirked.

         " That we see each other again BEFORE next Wednesday!"

         It had been about a week and a half since I'd met him first for coffee. A week and a half in which I wasn't so sure we'd clicked and doubted our potential chemistry and a week and a half in which I hesitated.

         " Ok," I nodded as we bise'd goodbye and he placed his hand gently on my back. " I think I can do that."

         In ten days, there is time for a hundred indecisions, a hundred revisions. A week and a half ago FWB was the potential front runner, but he has seemingly dropped off the planet again much to my dismay. Monsieur Engineer has gone radio silent again. E is still E.

        After Monsieur Lawyer left, I texted him to thank him again. His reponse?

        "It was my pleasure. I'm already excited to see you again even though I just left!"

        I can honestly say now that I'm excited too.