Home sweet finally feels like home

This week is vacation for all the students in France.  It could not be any more timely: we finally put together our apartment, post-bugpocalypse.  Also, I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday while cleaning, so I have double the excuse to laze on our couch.  We spent a very frenzied weekend making trips to the hardware store, Ikea (again), the marché, the grocery store.  We put up the drapes (aka: an excuse for Ben to use his favorite new play thing, the drill), we mopped the floors, put together even more furniture, and started some decorating.  At long last, I no longer feel like a guest in my own home.

Bedroom, now with drapes!

The French apparently don't believe in hanging clothes, so
we both bought clothes racks for the anti-wrinkle campaign.

There's always a period of time when you move into a new place when you wake up in the morning and can't quite remember where you are or what you're doing there.  I had that feeling on a more global scale when I first moved to France, but any remnant in any capacity is receding until it almost feels average that I'm here in this apartment in this country.  I had an out-of-body moment of panic last night when I remembered that I quit my job and sold all my belongings to move to a foreign country, but I managed to zero back in on my reality before the hyperventilating hit.  The foreign language doesn't seem so foreign any more.  I understand my professors at the university with no problem.  On Friday, I was able to carry on a conversation with one of Ben's new colleagues with minimal help.  The ability to express myself in French is becoming more fluid, although I still wish I could just acquire French by osmosis.  

Kitchen!  With appliances and mopped floor!

Alcove, with both desks, and a little decor.

All of these things take time.  That's one thing no one really warns you about when you undertake a new venture.  It's going to be so exciting!  You're going to learn so much!  You'll become a totally different person in the face of new challenges!  Oh, and it's going to take MONTHS to feel any sense of normality!  At the heart of it, I'm still an English-speaking American with 25 years of red, white, and blue conditioning.  Slowly, slowly comes the melting to blue, white, and red.  I don't know why I'm surprised that it feels like it's taking so long to feel normal here.  I'm used to doing things that take time to perfect.  I didn't train for a marathon in a few weeks (some people can, I most definitely needed months for my first, and months after to recover...), it took a culmination of four years of training and practice to present 45 minutes of music for a degree recital in college.  It took me three years to settle and learn independence in DC.  

My favorite.  The living room.

DRAPES.

But I guess it's hard to impress this upon the now, now, NOW generation.  Despite my appreciation for the importance of practicing and training, I'm still eager for imminent pay-offs.  When we moved in a month ago, we thought we could build all our furniture in one night.  Silly.  I keep asking myself why I'm not fluent in French yet... silly!  It's the bigger things too: why don't I have a career doing something I love yet?  Why am I not a settled, married, child-rearing, mortgage-paying, retirement-saving established woman yet?  We're always so keen to move on to the next phase of life, to be older, wiser, more mature.  But where does that leave room to savor the present?  How often do we stop in our tracks and gaze around at what's in front of us, the fruits of our dedicated labor?  With our furniture fresh out of the packaging, and our language just on the verge of true comprehension.  How often do we appreciate all the hard work and struggle we've just endured to get to the current moment?  And can we readily admit to ourselves that maybe we're just not ready for that next phase of life, that maybe we require more practice to find some higher level of satisfaction in our present state?

Satisfaction in the shape of a baguette.

So this week of vacation, I plan to retreat and recover and emerge ready to continue the journey.  The frustrating, exhilarating, exhausting, and inspiring journey to discover what it means to be a citizen of the world, and not just a resident of a limited reality.  I hope to recoup my vitality for the continued trek to the depths of unmitigated panic and anxiety and for the flights of soaring highs of confidence.  I'll move forward with the acknowledged expectation that the living of life takes time, but that time is fleeting and should be savored.  And I'll immerse myself in the rich simplicity of sitting back and enjoying the new home that's taken a required toll on mind, body, and spirit.

I want to eat ALL THE CHEESE.

Only Lyon!