I'd woken up at 3h45 that morning to cuddle with my five-year old girl charge, whom I'll call Li, who'd had a nightmare. It is at once amazing and overwhelming how incredible children can be...when she curls into my arms in the morning all warm and half-asleep I feel my heart swell with affection. I admit that I am attached to the children I look after; it is hard not to be in this line of work, even when they are chiant. I can only imagine how insane and scary and ten times more intense I will feel when the children I cuddle with are someday mine...I know I will love them with a fury and a power that will go beyond anything I have, to this point, ever experienced. I am confident that if I had children tomorrow, I could handle motherhood. Being responsible for another human life no longer scares me.
One day I want children of my own, but not just yet....for now, I am on the adventure to eventually discover--whether tomorrow or in a few years, I do not know, whether American or French or some other nationality, I cannot yet say--their father. But I do not yet want children...I have lots more living to do before I undertake that adventure. I am not yet 25. I have time. Yet these small previews of motherhood show me just how absolutely fierce my capacity to love is, can be, could be, will be. And that goes for my unborn children as well as my family and friends, as well as anyone with whom I should happen to fall in love. My love is a fierce love, sometimes too fierce and loyal for even me to handle.
After cuddling with Li, I could not fall back to sleep, so at 4:15 I made a coffee and got to reading. By the time I made it back to my studio on Saturday and did grocery shopping and errands, I wanted no more than one thing: to see my Monsieur Lawyer.
That afternoon he had sent me an interesting article written by a french philosopher about differences between the States and Europe that affirmed a lot of my own thoughts about what makes the two places so different.
" I knew you were going to like it," Monsieur Lawyer responded to me via FB chat. I was half asleep at 16h30 but happy to talk to him. You are starting to understand how I tick, I thought. Oh this could be bad. I'd also finished the book L'ecume des jours by Boris Vian that he'd bought me.
" I promise you I won't catch un nenuphar in my lungs like Chloe," I teased him.
" Haha yes, pay attention to yourself! Get some rest, plein de baisers."
Oh this was bad.
Bad not because it is inherently bad, but bad because it means I am starting to roll in the deep with this one, that I am certainly beginning to attach to him. I warned him I'm an attacher. Maybe I need to warn myself again.
We made plans to possibly see each other later that night. He had a birthday party to stop into. I climbed into my bed for a nap.
* * *
Monsieur Lawyer stopped by later that evening. I love curling into the nook between his arm and body and kissing him gingerly on the cheek while he strokes my back.
" I've been wanting to see you all week," I said.
" Me too," he leaned in and kissed me.
We were discussing the American elections, me possibly going to ENS and passing the agregation in English and routes to getting French citizenship, his week with a trip to Bordeaux, and his trip to New York and Montreal with friends in January. We somehow then got onto the subject of his being old. He is anything but; he just turned 26.
"You're SO old!" I teased.
" And you're such a baby," he laughed back. I'm a year and a half or so younger.
"Twenty six is not old," I responded.
" No, but it means I am a year closer to thirty."
"Thirty is not that old anymore."
"Yes, but all my girl friends panicked when they turned 26."
"Because women have this idea in their heads that by thirty they need to be married with kids. It's the biological clock deal."
" True," he laughed.
" What are you doing tomorrow?"
"Lunch with my mom, then going to see the last dress rehearsal of an Opera. Tosca."
He held my hand and stroked my hair and said that if the dress rehearsal was any good, he'd get his dad to pass him tickets so he could take me in December.
Gah. A doctoral student who is a complete nerd and into culture and has a sense of humor? I played with his hair. I love his dark, dark, dark black hair. And when he wears his dark black blazer like he was wearing last night, all I want to do is kiss him.
Little did he know that while he held me my heart strings wove invisible, binding knots around him.
* * *
At mid-day today I received a message from E, who is in Bangkok on the return home to Paris. He said he'd see me in Paris soon. I will be glad to hear about his adventures....but I am numb to him. At least I feel this way. A lot has happened in the three weeks since he's been gone.
I was looking at train tickets last night too to see my French Wine Baron, who also messaged me on FB today. We were working on arranging the best time for me to arrive and leave.
I again feel torn and even somewhat like a traitor for going down to see FWB while I am technically seeing Monsieur Lawyer, but the last time I felt this way was when I was seeing E and turned down going to the south to see FWB because I was too loyal to E. I learned the hard way I should've just gone because as soon as I returned to Paris E told me he wanted to stop seeing me in a romantic capacity and then I regretted not going to Provence. I have said no to FWB and no to going to the south for over a year now; I feel like it's high time I go.
There is no turning back from the game now. Between Monsieur Lawyer and FWB, I am surely rolling in the deep.
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