Emily in France: Home is where the heart is, and other stupid clichés

I've been in France for just about five-and-a-half weeks, which is the longest time that I've continually been in the country of France. The longest I've been out of the US was four months, when I studied abroad in London. The longest it had been since I'd seen my parents was something like 9 months the year after I graduated from college; and the longest time that Ben and I have been apart was 6 months. I include the aforementioned because my mental excel document entitled "Life" contains a column for the cliché, "home is where the heart is."

When I began my freshman year at BU seven years ago, "home" was still Hannawa Falls, New York, in the cozy little room on the sunny side of my parents' lovely house. Somewhere around the middle of sophomore year, the concept of home became a little more ambiguous. I had far less tying me to my hometown, and most of my belongings had somehow migrated to Boston with me. I enjoyed being in New York with my parents, but I didn't retain any friends from high school, so it was always a bit boring to sit at the house by myself during Christmas and spring break. When I settled in London in the fall of 2009, home became Boston and the life that I had left there. The second tab in my mental "Life" excel contains a pie chart of all the people and places I call home; it's growing ever more fractured the older I get. Getting older has a kind of snowball affect on the emotional attachments one makes. My parents are "home," Boston was "home," Washington, D.C. became a very solid home, my close relatives and friends are "home," and of course Ben is "home."

And now I'm trying to sort out squeezing one more piece into my pie chart: the Lyon slice. There are some very obvious difficulties when attempting to acclimate to a foreign city. The language, the customs, the ridiculous business hours, all the cigarette smoking. I've visited France enough times to readily expect these things. But there are more subtle differences that I never really took into account when I visited Ben over the past four years. Like peanut butter and mac 'n' cheese. Understanding the dull roar of conversation on public transportation. Not dreading every single interaction in a store for fear of yet again feeling like an idiot. Bagels, Dunkin' Donuts coffee, apartments with equipped kitchens, sidewalks devoid of dog poop, still not understanding in which direction one commences les bisous with friends (those cheek kisses of which the French are so fond). And of course the omnipresent task of frantically learning new vocabulary and grammar. All these little things we so genuinely take for granted in the US (or wherever you're from if you're living in a foreign country).

Despite all the change, I feel very fortunate that I'm acclimating with one very big slice of the home pie chart: Ben. For so many years, I've felt like a huge part of me has been missing, as anyone in a long-distance relationship can attest. It became second nature to put up a fortress around my heart every time we were apart. Otherwise, it's just too difficult to bear with missing the person you love. The most awful, awful, awful times were when we said goodbye to each other for what we knew would be several months (or maybe the last time... I cannot emphasize enough just how much being long distance SUCKS). I can vividly remember each time we said goodbye to each other at the ends of summers, vacations, and visits. How I thought each time would be easier, but each time felt like a bandaid being brutally ripped off a not-yet-healed wound. The first hour after the goodbye was always the worst. The next few days would bring a sinking depression, but eventually I would build up my little fortress again, and I would be laughing happily with friends with my shields up. Now, I'm learning how to create a brand new fortress called "Fort America/parents/friends/peanut butter." But it's wonderful finally to demolish the Ben fortress.

I've decided that "home is where the heart is" is a stupid and simplistic philosophy. My heart is always going to be fractured because it would be impossible for all my people and places to coexist in one tidy cocoon. I can't drag Washington to my parents' house, and I can't invite my parents to move in with us in Lyon (or can I? what do you say, guys?). This is probably a truth that everyone at my age is beginning to realize. By default, I think people are connectors, and connections can't always stay whole. It's how we deal with the goodbyes that defines our relationships. Let's just all take a moment to give hearty thanks to the Internet and Google video chat.

On a far more lighthearted note, we bought appliances yesterday! One step closer in the quest for a fully-functioning apartment. Fridge and stove/oven being delivered on Tuesday, which means only two more days of street kebabs for dinner. Also, we ventured out to a brocante near our apartment yesterday. A brocante is a kind of mass garage sale that turns up colossal loads of other peoples trash and treasures. We had no intention of buying anything, but the experience was rather overwhelming all the same. I could see all sorts of wonderful little things from porcelain dishes and beautiful crystal glasses, to ancient books and old paintings... as well as all the junk people try to pass off as valuable (I won't pooh-pooh too much, as we know, one man's trash is another man's treasure). The next time we go to a brocante, I've decided it would be beneficial to have strict goals in mind for items to purchase.