I suppose that's because I'm at the point of no return. Literally.
* * *
For as much as nannying kept me from my life, I've been making up for lost time this week. Coffee in the afternoon on Monday with a wise, older expat friend of mine followed by weekly apéro with R. We sat there in the cool caress of the wind sipping timid mojitos discussing how the two of us could not have possibly survived this past year without our Monday ritual.
This was followed on Tuesday by meeting someone I've been dying to meet for a long while for un verre at about 17h ( so much fun, if you're reading, thank you! ) and then movies with E later that night. E can CAN IT for all I care right now. I'm not happy at all with him.
My first night back in France, we grabbed dinner and then coffee. At which point we were discussing my stay-in-this-nation strategy, and at which point he stated that I reminded him of his Ex. GODDAMN IT CAN YOU JUST STOP COMPARING ME TO YOUR EX!?
¨I. am. not. your. ex.¨ One sentence. Firmly said. He tried to change the subject. I reeled in back in, fuming. It is hardly a compliment to be compared to her.
¨Let's make one thing clear: I am not your ex. I am not staying in this country for a man, I'm not even seeing anyone.¨
¨You have to bring it back up?¨
I didn't say anything.
¨Look, I'm probably not going to say anything well tonight,¨ he sighed. Awkward silence. I asked if he wanted to go home. He said yes. So we left.
I didn't hear from him for a week.
Then saw him Tuesday night. Showed up to the movie theatre. Promptly stated he'd just returned from Belgium. Oh, I know who's in Belgium: the woman in a relationship he broke up with me for and who he's been seeing furtively for about a year.
¨ Oh,¨ I said. ¨Well, did it go well?¨
He'd said that it did and when I was trying to ask him about it he cut me off and changed the subject. Then WHY did you bring it up you moron? Also, if you haven't figured it out already, IF SHE HASN'T LEFT HER BOYFRIEND yet, and she hasn't chosen you, THEN SHE PROBABLY NEVER WILL and you are just an amusement.
This is not a jealousy thing. I have no desire to be in a relationship with E. As a friend, I am livid with the passive-aggressiveness ( says the queen of passive-aggressive behavior writing on this blog..): why tell me you just got back from Belgium if you don't want me to ask you about it? You're not going to inspire jealousy, if that's your goal. You are only going to lower my opinion of you.
And maybe this is super American of me, but I have NO RESPECT for someone who doesn't even a) have the decency not to see someone already in a relationship and b) doesn't have enough self-esteem to say they deserve better than to be someone's toy, because I can nearly guarantee you he is a toy.
Needless to say, after the movie on Tuesday, I haven't texted him once.
* * *
Wednesday night, I had intended to stay in. But then another French friend H, whom I met at American university club events this past fall ( he did his Masters at a not so shabby school in California), wanted to know if I was interested in grabbing Japanese with an American buddy of his from said school. Friend, whom I'll call Z, also happened to speak fluent French. A dude. An American one. Speaking French. Has hell frozen over? Not to promote stereotypes or anything, but my major wasn't dominated by females for nothing!
So I said what the hell and said yes.
We were all seated around the table when said friend brought up something I have since been pondering: to stay, or not to stay, that is the question. He too is 25. Oh, it has come on so fast, this mid-twenties thing. Full of choices, and responsibilities, and serious decisions, such as this ¨where do I build my life?¨ sort of thing. Which is precisely what we were discussing. He is deciding whether or not to build his here, a building I am pursuing unabashedly.
What if I fail?
This is why, last week, at three am, in the dead of sleep, I awoke in a panic attack.
* * *
The point of no return is this: I'm really, truly, entirely, assimilating. And it is both wonderful and terrifying. I bring you the proof: my mother and I got into a blow-out argument about me correcting her grammar and language on Facebook. Why did I feel the impulse to correct her? Well, that's easy: I get corrected all the damn day, every day, when I use French. It's just the norme. The French are notorious for policing one another and their language use. It's a big cultural thing. E corrects me all the time, to the point where I just say ¨thank you Mr Grammarian¨ and smile. I used to get annoyed, thinking he was condescending, but I eventually realized this is just average French cultural behavior.
I've gotten such in the habit of it now, even with my own American friend's speaking French here, that I don't think much of it anymore and correct people. It isn't necessarily a condescension thing, it's just something I've absorbed. But my mother didn't take it so well...and I don't blame her. I probably wouldn't have either if I were on the other end of it and this were several years prior to France. We eventually got over the argument. But language use is rigid in France and dare I say it, it's affecting my use of English and transforming my behavior around language. Here's to attempting to be more aware of my shifting behaviors.
Assimilation, point: 1.
It also occurred to me again how much I'm assimilating when I was home. I became seriously offended when my mother did a small half laugh after a comment one night she made in the kitchen. I thought she was really mocking me. I got angry. Then I thought of how my oldest girl charge, when I was a nanny, thought I was making fun of her when I would half-laugh after comment I'd made.
¨You're mocking me!¨ She'd cry out, upset.
You see, a lot of Americans have a weird habit of just laughing to themselves for seemingly no reason after making a declarative statement, and the French find this gesture truly bizarre. E has pointed this out to me on more than one occasion. I know I do it intuitively, but I've been away from other people doing it around me for so long, and from its social code and context, that I too didn't immediately pick up on the social cue until after ward, when I stepped back to analyze the situation.
Assimilation, point: 2.
There was also the fact that for the first week or so, I couldn't stop myself from saying things like ¨Buh...¨ right before I'd start to speak.
Assimilation, point: 3.
* * *
Is this the point of no return? I don't know. It sometimes feels like it. I'm terrified either way.
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