Is anyone really surprised? I said it two months ago, and it’s true again. I fell back in love with Paris. (And then came back to the ship and had a quarter life crisis.)
Since I had done most of the toursit-y things that I wanted to do in Paris when I visited almost exactly two months ago, this visit to Paris was very, very different.
The first day I got there, Sam and I agreed to meet at the train station………………………… except we apparently had different train stations in mind, so I stood at Paris Gare de Nord for an hour and she stood at Paris Nord metro stop for an hour. At first, this seemed to be kind of a downer, but then I realized that this hour gave me a lot of time to practice my “don’t even bother asking me for money, I’m a terrible person and will just shake my head.” look. The first maybe 10 or 15 minutes, I was noticing certain people circling me, eying my purse or wandering up and asking me for money. Unfortunately for them, my hand has been stapled to the top of my purse for the last two months, and, thanks to Chicago, I’m always just a smidgen paranoid to begin with. I also had my purse wrapped around my backpack, which is about 35 pounds. So if someone can manage to, in a very public space, take off my backpack AND untie my purse from it AND THEN take said purse, they honestly just deserve it at that point. As for the people asking me for money, I’ve found that instead of speaking and letting them immediately know that you’re a tourist, you just shake your head. (Also, when in doubt and I just have to speak, I find myself accidentally speaking in Spanish. Which ended up working in my favor since Parisians hate Americans.) Also, I’ve perfected the “Stop-looking-at-me-like-a-piece-of-meat-or-I-will-actually-strangle-you” look. By the end of the hour long wait, I think I was actually scaring guys that looked at me. In case anyone wants a mental image of this look, it’s very similar to the look 8th grade me gave my mom when she lectured me. Clenching your jaw really adds to the “My heart is black” look. Point is, if anyone was worried about me after Berlin, you can relax a little bit. I’m not always as stupid as I was in Germany.
Finally, after about $5.00 in text messages sent back and forth, Sam and I found each other. The hug lasted approximately 5 straight minutes and I don’t regret it at all because I was just so happy to see a little slice of Chicago. At this point, it was well after 10pm, so we headed back to her apartment and talked incessantly the whole ride back. Also, I’m not sure if anyone remembers, but I love metro systems. The Paris metro system is by far my favorite one so far. So I was on cloud nine while sweating my ass off on line 6 heading to Nation. We arrived at her apartment and hung out eating a baguette and cheese and drinking wine until we both passed out, cuddling on her tiny twin bed. And finally, for the first time in what felt like two months, I slept in, with nothing on my “to-do” list that was time sensitive.
The next day, we wandered around to Notre Dame, the lock bridge, and sat at a cafe soaking it all in. I feel repetitive saying this, but, man, I love Paris. There’s something about it that’s just magical. When I visited the first time, I knew I loved it, but thought maybe it was a case of “First Love Butterflies”. Since that was my first real time leaving the country, I thought it was held to a different standard. But visiting this time solidified my love. Something about the city just feels like magic. Trying to decide what exactly it was that made me love the city, Sam and I realized that Paris is so much like Chicago in so many ways, but so different in all the right ways. Walking down the streets in Paris, even the side streets, just feels like home. When my mom took me on my first visit to DePaul, I told her that I never wanted to leave. It just felt right. It felt like I should put on my backpack and go to class and never look back. That’s how Paris feels, except not for school. It feels like I could live there.
Anyway, that night I hung out with Sam’s friends and we just drank wine and I soaked in the company of people that I wasn’t stuck on a ship with. The next day I met up with Lexie, Mary, and Rose (my best friends on SAS) and we headed to Versailles. I’ve seen some pretty amazing estates on this trip. I saw Catherine’s Palace in Russia and I really thought nothing would top that. But okay, French Monarchy, I see you. This place was- understatement of the year-massive. We wanted to see it all, but since their train got in at noon, we didn’t have time since it closed at 6. Yeah, do that math. Take a minute. Yup, it would take SIX HOURS to see the whole thing. It would take 6 minutes to show people my apartment back home. And that’s if I took extra time to go through the contents of my fridge, on by one, and maybe give you a tutorial on how to use the shower. Can you imagine a house (ha….house?) that takes 6 hours to tour? I want to go back someday and finish the tour and take some time to really appreciate it all.
That night, Sam and I went out on the town with her friends. I’m happy to report that, while I did buy a few rounds for my new friends, I made it home safely! I was well taken care of all night and when I finally hit the floor (They had a full house, so I slept on the floor. I didn’t pass out on the floor. Just to clarify) at 4am, I was just such a happy camper.
I spent the next day mostly sleeping. Running errands. Soaking up the wifi. At first I was mad at myself for “wasting” a day in Paris by sleeping until 1. Then I realized that I didn’t waste it. I needed that time. I’m not going to apologize for sleeping in and I’m not going to beat myself up for using the wifi to check in on my bank account or make travel plans for Dublin. Sam and I ate a baguette and cheese for dinner. Again. Then we headed to my favorite place ever-the Eiffel Tower. I got a crepe and some souvenirs (I’ve hardly bought any souvenirs from this entire trip & I’m starting to kick myself for it.) and we wandered up to the Tower just in time to see it sparkle. If you’ve never seen the Eiffel Tower start to sparkle, you need to add it to your bucket list. Sure, Versailles was beautiful and sure, Notre Dame was amazing, but the Eiffel Tower at dusk, sparking, just blows everything else out of the water. Maybe it’s just me, but looking up and soaking in the absolute beauty of it just makes your heart soar.
The next day, I said goodbye to Paris, promising to return someday.
And thus, my quarter life crisis was sparked. I’m going to explain this internal struggle because I know I’m not the only one who’s going through it. While I may be being a smidgen irrational, I’m sure many of you guys can relate to it a little bit. Perhaps some of you will have advice for me or perhaps you’ll appreciate the insight into the life of a 20 years old. Or maybe you’ll get bored, in which case I welcome you to skip through this section!
So, the night that we returned to the ship we played this super fun game called “Where do you see yourself in 15 years” WHICH WAS NOT A FUN GAME. And the next day, a presenter came into my class and talked about the NGO he started (Which is amazing. Google EGBOK missions.) and at one point said something along the lines of “it was hard to go against what society kept telling me.” And my little brain was like “PREACH, MAN, PREACH!” But then I realized I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, so I can’t really be pissed off at society. Then my lovely friend Mary read a passage from a book she had finished which basically said that your twenties are super important, and you shouldn’t waste your years working your life away. Oh. Okay.
Here’s the thing that gets me: First, there’s this huge pressure on people my age to get internships. Build your resume! Network! Work your ass off! If you want to get anywhere, you need to be thinking about the future! But then you have all these people telling you to stop working so much. Start enjoying your life! Go out on Friday nights! Sleep in once in awhile! Drink all night and be hungover all day! Because you’re young. That word… ugh. Young.
So as we sit here and I listen to my friends go on about their life plans, I’m starting to sweat a little. Some of them basically have a retirement plan in place already. I have a friend who has a very specific, year-by-year plan. They spend their weekends networking and they’ve got pretty set goals. And then others vehemently opposed this; but they still had a plan! They’re gonna travel and live day by day and get small jobs here and there. They’re not going to work any 9-5! They’re going out on Fridays and they’re schedule actually says that they’re spending a few years having fun! They may not have a year-by-year plan, but instead they have a decent set of goals! A clear vision for where and who they want to be in 15 years. But those are pretty much the only two life plans: Everyone fell into one or the other.
Here’s the problem: I am working my ass off. But I’m not networking. I don’t have an incredible resume. Sephora is a great job, but it’s not going to impress any CEOs. I don’t have an internship lined up, and if I do what I want to, I don’t have time to get one until Senior year- 3 years after many of my peers! But on the other hand, I’m not living my life day by day. I don’t want to get small jobs here and there. I want to have a college fund for my kids and not cry when I pay bills. I also don’t go out every Friday night. I haven’t been known to sleep in (At one point I actually earned the nickname “Fun Sponge.”) and I sure as hell don’t feel all that young.
And don’t get me started on marriage. I’ll pause while you all laugh and remind me that I’m being irrational. Okay. Ready to move on? Mary, ever so kindly, told me that her book suggests that maybe, just maybe, I should start thinking about things like that. Because otherwise I’ll push it off and next you know, I’ll be thirty and I’ll just marry the first dude I see. (Keep in mind we’re on a ship. A small ship. Things get boring and pretty much any and all conversation topics are put on the table.)
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not the marriage part that put my head into a tailspin. I promise I’m not freaking out and frantically looking for a husband. It’s mostly the reminder that I’ve put off basically any sort of social life at all for the last year or two. I’ve been working so hard for things like Semester at Sea, which I’m very, very proud of and don’t regret at all, but in working so hard, I forgot to be young. I forgot to go out on Thursday and flirt with boys. I forgot to make new friends and try new food. I forgot to gossip and stay up late every weekend and now, here I am on a ship with 650 strangers and no work to do, and I have no idea how to be social! (Exaggeration. I do have lots of friends. But you get my point.)
And I keep telling myself that once I get back, I won’t do what I’ve been doing. 40 hour work weeks won’t be piled onto a full load of college classes and maybe I’ll go out on the weekends! Maybe I’ll stop putting my life into a color coded excel spreadsheet. Maybe I won’t make excuses to stay in and sleep and I won’t have to constantly have to cancel things because of work. But that’s just not going to work. Because now that I’m here, I realize that I’m not done. I want to do an immersion trip to South America to work on my Spanish. I want to do a service trip to Africa. I want to backpack Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia and i want to study abroad again. I want to travel until I graduate. I have a 25 before 25 goal that I don’t plan on giving up, and I still have 6 countries to go. But I can’t do that working 20 hours a week. So I know that I’ll need to go back to what I was doing.
But which is better? Is it better to regret missing out on the Friday nights? To regret not getting a stellar internship? Or to regret not seeing the world and all it has to offer? I could make a good argument for any of these options. And it’ll probably give me a headache every time I think about it. People say, “do what makes you happy.” Which is so easy to say. But, and maybe I’m an oddity here, I can’t imagine that everyone knows exactly what makes them happy. And I definitely can’t imagine that everyone can do exactly what makes them happy without making sacrifices. And before anyone sends me an email full of “Stop thinking about things like this!” I’m going to kindly ask that you remember being 20. Take a moment to remember the pressures that you’re under. (I understand that it only gets worse from here……….. let’s not remind me.) Appreciate how easy it is for you to tell me to do what makes me happy, but how difficult that actually is to do. There are sacrifices that will always need to be made, but the question is: what do I want to sacrifice?
But for now, after I’ve finished my rant here, I’m going to set it aside. I’ll come back to it when I need to, but now that’s it’s off my chest (and stuck on the internet for the world to see) I’m going to soak in and appreciate that fact that I’ll be in Dublin in just a few days, having a beer in a pub with some of the best people I’ll ever meet. Cheers!!
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