This Must Be the Place

Today is Bastille Day, and a year ago today, I was at the grave of Victor Hugo, sobbing. A year ago, I was studying abroad in Paris, living my dream dancing and using public transportation, and yet, I was experiencing one of my saddest and loneliest moments.

The scenario is not at all black and white. I love travelling and exploring, and going to Paris had been a lifelong dream of mine. The city holds so much dance history and bursts at the seams with art on every corner. I came armed with a to-do list nearly a mile long, and I accomplished everything on that list.

I had my first sip of sauvignon blanc, which has become my favorite wine. I fell in love with French fashion, and found myself interested in clothes for the first time. My short hair made people mistake me for a local. I learned how to have a basic conversation in French. I went five weeks without riding in a car. I bought a baguette for a euro on my commute home and ate half with dinner and the other half with butter and jelly for breakfast.

I cooked my first meal, drank my first beer, and did my French homework in my tiny Parisian apartment, my first apartment. I memorized the metro stops, so I did not have to use Google maps by the end of the trip. I choreographed my first full length solo, and I was proud of it. I still am proud.

I ate lunch on the Seine and bought books from the famous Shakespeare & Company. I visited the largest dance archive in the world. I danced on the streets of Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles and in the Jardin des Tuileries, outside the Louvre. I ate crêpes, croissants, eclairs, and macarons. I prayed in famous cathedrals and obscure little churches on the corner.

I swam in the Mediterranean sea. I walked over five miles every day, with my record being 14 the day I went to Versailles. I took two buses and a train to get to a tiny beach town called Cassis. I watched France win the World Cup in Russia on a giant TV screen at the Eiffel Tower. After, I walked home because someone set off a firework in the metro.

I also spent a lot of time crying. On a particularly rough day, I had a meltdown in Notre Dame. I think the tourists thought I was very devout, but I really just needed to cry.

When I returned home, it was really difficult to talk about the trip. I felt awful so much of the time, that it had soured my view of the trip. Still, I did not want to appear ungrateful, and I truly loved so many parts of the trip. I came up with a formula for how to address the trip. If I did not know the person well, I would just list some of my favorite moments. If I knew the person well, I would start by referencing the parts I loved, and then explain how hard the trip was.

Most often, people shrugged off any mention of my misery. But it was Paris! they'd say, it was the trip of a lifetime! They were not wrong either. It was Paris, and it was the trip of a lifetime. AND it was really hard.

I learned a lot about myself on that trip, especially how emotions can coexist. When I wept at the grave of Victor Hugo, I was filled with disbelief, sadness, loneliness, and regret. And yet, I recall that day as one of my favorites. I learned I really like myself as I am, and that I am actually interested in fashion when I am wearing clothes that make me feel confident and strong. Post-Paris, my self-love rocketed, and I am so much more appreciative of myself.

It is much easier for me to look back and romanticize that trip a year later. Time tints the past with a rosy hue. I think it is important to acknowledge how life-changing experiences overlap with mental health struggles. As a whole, 2018 was a particularly difficult year for me, and I also had incredibly meaningful moments - in Paris, in DC, in NYC, as well as at my homes in Los Angeles and Denver.

A year later, I would not tell my former self that it gets better. Sometimes, it really doesn't. Instead, I wish I could tell her that it is important to feel conflicting emotions at once. I would give myself the permission to cry and laugh in the same moment. I wish I could tell myself travelling is horrible and magical all at once. When I left Paris, I never wanted to go back. I was tired of the French attitude and the difficult language. Now, I know I can be frustrated and still miss the journey. This must be the place, right in the mess of it all.

Tu me manques, Paris.