Nostalgia

In 2007 - 2008, I had a livejournal (yes, yes, a hangover from my teenage years... when, apparently, I decided that capital letters were démodé). And I wrote about my time in Rouen. I was about to leave when I wrote this, and I don't think my heart has been as full since. Maybe it's time to start plotting my escape...


I only have 3 weeks left here. I want to fill them to the brim with everything i love about being here. I am so lucky in so many ways and I cannot imagine my life or myself without this experience. Yes, I'm like a broken record on this topic, but it's just made an unimaginable difference to my life to have been able to come here and, well, live. I can't believe I have to leave. And as Sarah said at her birthday meal tonight, I can't believe that we haven't even known each other for 9 months yet and we're already all so special to each other.

I love speaking at least 3 languages a day. I love chattering on and not even realise I'm speaking french. I love being a regular in my beautiful tea shop and getting cheek kisses on entry and that they know exactly what i'm going to have. I love looking down into Rouen from the top of the valley. I love the breathless exhilaration of having left my old life behind, temporarily at least. I love having friends from england, scotland, ireland (northern and republic), the usa, canada, finland, germany, france, austria, spain, belgium, greece. i love fresh bread and stinky cheese. i love going to the market on a sunday and knowing exactly where best to get each different product. I love making jokes in foreign languages. I love being the pianist for a foreign choir. I love mocking the Normandy accent. I love the confidence I've found here.

If I have another year in my life as intense and eye-opening as this one in my life I shall consider myself blessed- though I guess life is as intense as one chooses to make it, and intensity of experience is what I'm always going to be going for now. Not that I haven't had shitty times, misery, pain, blahblahblah or that it hasn't been difficult to keep going and not just wish for London and an easy life- but it's those times which have made the good times all the better.

9 months ago I started randomly grinning as I walked around my new -chez moi-. I still have that smile plastered all over my face.