This photo helps to explain why I find myself going through a HUGE transformation--some would call it a mid-life crisis. I think no-more like puberty at 50! In 2005 I spent a year in this fabulous city with all three of my daughters. My oldest, twins, were studying abroad for the year with their university. I suggested (after some great wine out on our deck back in the states) that it would be fun (I used the word fun) if I could find a cute little apartment in Paris and take my younger daughter-then a sophomore in high school-with me and the four of us women could enjoy France for the year. My husband, the prince that he is, said, "If you can make it happen, you should go." Hmmm.......a year later I was on a plane with both he and my daughter winging our way to Paris after having rented a GREAT apartment in the 7th, finding an international high school for my daughter, arranging the proper papers for us to live there and finding a way to fit a year's worth of clothes in one suitcase. I make it sound quite easy--actually it was one of the hardest things that I have tried to do but the bottom line is, I did it. And I haven't been the same since. Really none of us have been. It was the most life-altering experience with both good and bad attached to it. For the first time in my life I actually made decisions just for me! Getting married young and moving out of my parents home into my own left no in between time to just be me. Now all of a sudden I could wake up and go to the Louvre for four hours and not have to ask anyone if that was ok or arrange schedules for kids to be picked up. It was crazy weird!!! I think it is called freedom and it had been sooo long since I felt that. I was totally responsible for my daughter's and my well-being and quite frankly, did a great job. Not only that, I was living in the most fabulous place on Earth. Not all would agree and that's a good thing because there isn't enough space for everyone there but for those of you who feel as I do about that city it is magical. And to live there and discover all its layers at a leisurely pace was heaven. It spun a web around me that I am still tangled up in! The dilemma--how do I fit it and the people I love more than anything in the world into my life? 
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Here Lies The Problem
This photo helps to explain why I find myself going through a HUGE transformation--some would call it a mid-life crisis. I think no-more like puberty at 50! In 2005 I spent a year in this fabulous city with all three of my daughters. My oldest, twins, were studying abroad for the year with their university. I suggested (after some great wine out on our deck back in the states) that it would be fun (I used the word fun) if I could find a cute little apartment in Paris and take my younger daughter-then a sophomore in high school-with me and the four of us women could enjoy France for the year. My husband, the prince that he is, said, "If you can make it happen, you should go." Hmmm.......a year later I was on a plane with both he and my daughter winging our way to Paris after having rented a GREAT apartment in the 7th, finding an international high school for my daughter, arranging the proper papers for us to live there and finding a way to fit a year's worth of clothes in one suitcase. I make it sound quite easy--actually it was one of the hardest things that I have tried to do but the bottom line is, I did it. And I haven't been the same since. Really none of us have been. It was the most life-altering experience with both good and bad attached to it. For the first time in my life I actually made decisions just for me! Getting married young and moving out of my parents home into my own left no in between time to just be me. Now all of a sudden I could wake up and go to the Louvre for four hours and not have to ask anyone if that was ok or arrange schedules for kids to be picked up. It was crazy weird!!! I think it is called freedom and it had been sooo long since I felt that. I was totally responsible for my daughter's and my well-being and quite frankly, did a great job. Not only that, I was living in the most fabulous place on Earth. Not all would agree and that's a good thing because there isn't enough space for everyone there but for those of you who feel as I do about that city it is magical. And to live there and discover all its layers at a leisurely pace was heaven. It spun a web around me that I am still tangled up in! The dilemma--how do I fit it and the people I love more than anything in the world into my life? 
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