Beneath the surface

I am thankfully swinging back to the other side of happy.

The past couple of weeks have been tough—nothing crazy, but it can be hard here. Why did I leave my friends, apartment and life in New York? Is the struggle to learn a new language, within a new culture, worth it? How can it be that I have fewer friends and am doing less freelance, and yet am always gasping for air?

I knew these feelings would be inevitable when I planned to come over. But still. It’s no fun feeling lonely and lovelorn, being tired from work and studying French, and not being able to figure out how to hook up a tv, how to pick the right milk out at the grocery store, or how to make someone from HR return your messages.

But thankfully this city still makes me laugh out loud. Each morning when I pedal into the Place de la Concorde on my way to work, I am shocked and elated by the grandeur: the giant plaza with the gold-tipped monument and all the cars buzzing around it; the trees rimming the Tuileries Gardens to my left; the magnificent dome of Les Invalides in the distance and, there, further still, peeking over the sculpted trees, the Eiffel Tower. All of these things, in one place, so massive, so gorgeous, so exciting and storybookish.

And that is when I laugh and feel good and know I’m getting to that happy place again.