Good girls never make history fools. I'm breaking ALL the rules today and throwing it back on a Tuesday.
I was hanging out in the shower today, where I spend a good portion of my day thanks to what we call "summer" in Hong Kong. Summer is it's scientific name, season of flaming fire and stifling humidity and sweat is far more accurate. It's a bit of mouthful.
Anyhoo, as I was desalinating my body I started to reflect back on the past few years of post graduate life and the events that brought me to Asia. I came to the realization I have not spent a consecutive year on one continent since 2009. Asia will be the first year for me to stay on one continent, although I feel like I am kind of cheating since I have already lived in two different countries in Asia. This is also assuming I manage to stay put until November 22.
A year ago this time I was getting into the NYC groove. That is: I was working hard, playing hard, and barely scraping by. When I wasn't managing a boutique gourmet popcorn shop in Greenwich village, I was hustling interviews with temp agencies. I was waking up before 8 and actually exercising before anything else (ate a bit too much baguette in Paris). On my chill days I'd head to the park or do the most crazy bohemian things possible like biking from borough to borough or posting up at a swank restaurant in the village and drinking for free until four in the morning (thank you Andrew Golden) and crashing people's pads. A curious venture into a French restaurant once went from a conversation in French, to a delicious goat cheese appetizer with caramelized onions and toasted bread, to a coup de champagne, to five coups de champagne, to a personally escorted ride home by the owner himself. Yes, he literally just took me home and dropped me at my doorstep. I became great friends with that restaurant and it ended up feeling a lot like home because...
The year before that around this time I was winding down the most hectic season of work/play I have ever experienced in my life in Paris. Working in tourism in Paris, in the summer, in the company that I did, demanded every ounce of energy in my body, mind, and soul. The personal growth I experienced during this time period is something that has shaped my life forever. September brought about a ton of adventure in Paris and by this time fall had already crept up like a bandit. I was working less, laughing more, and doing such cliche things as: biking around on a beach cruiser with a bottle of wine, a baguette, and a wheel of cheese in my purse. I was pic-nicking under the stars and under the twinkle of the Eiffel Tower. Fall for me brought a trip to see my grandparents, a trip to Germany to see a college friend, a trip to Switzerland to go hangliding, and a local trip to Chartres which blew my mind. I went back to the states for the wedding of two of my best friends in college (who coincidentally are now divorced). I met a man who showed me what real love felt like. I shot him down for three months until I decided to date him for a year and half. We both wandered ourselves out of a relationship and into a relationshit. That year and half, good and bad, will forever me emblazoned in my brain and heart. I lived with another man who sadly preferred his own sex to mine, but colored my world with warm love and happiness. Correction, not just my world, every world he came in contact with was infected with his character. I let go of a lot of ideals that the world I grew up in told me I had to hold onto and exchanged them for something I felt was a little more rational.
You know when something makes you so sad that the back of your lymph nodes start to ache and that ached just spreads into your nose and then tears just kind of naturally well up in your face? That's the kind of pain I get when I start to miss Paris. But the Paris I miss will never exist again and that's why there is an ache in my lymph nodes right now. After little success in trying to recreate the type of life, love and friendships I had in Paris in Houston, Austin, and NYC, I came to the realization before I left for Asia that I no longer wanted to be a nomad. I've always heard about this stage in life, but never really thought it'd happen to me like it is now. I want to stay in one place, have a bed to crawl into at night, make money in a cool city that doesn't consume my soul, and live a balanced, healthy life full of happiness and adventure. I am happy now. It's not the euphoric high I experienced in Paris, but it is a good, steady kind of happy. A very healthy happy.
(And I'll always have Paris)
I was hanging out in the shower today, where I spend a good portion of my day thanks to what we call "summer" in Hong Kong. Summer is it's scientific name, season of flaming fire and stifling humidity and sweat is far more accurate. It's a bit of mouthful.
Anyhoo, as I was desalinating my body I started to reflect back on the past few years of post graduate life and the events that brought me to Asia. I came to the realization I have not spent a consecutive year on one continent since 2009. Asia will be the first year for me to stay on one continent, although I feel like I am kind of cheating since I have already lived in two different countries in Asia. This is also assuming I manage to stay put until November 22.
A year ago this time I was getting into the NYC groove. That is: I was working hard, playing hard, and barely scraping by. When I wasn't managing a boutique gourmet popcorn shop in Greenwich village, I was hustling interviews with temp agencies. I was waking up before 8 and actually exercising before anything else (ate a bit too much baguette in Paris). On my chill days I'd head to the park or do the most crazy bohemian things possible like biking from borough to borough or posting up at a swank restaurant in the village and drinking for free until four in the morning (thank you Andrew Golden) and crashing people's pads. A curious venture into a French restaurant once went from a conversation in French, to a delicious goat cheese appetizer with caramelized onions and toasted bread, to a coup de champagne, to five coups de champagne, to a personally escorted ride home by the owner himself. Yes, he literally just took me home and dropped me at my doorstep. I became great friends with that restaurant and it ended up feeling a lot like home because...
The year before that around this time I was winding down the most hectic season of work/play I have ever experienced in my life in Paris. Working in tourism in Paris, in the summer, in the company that I did, demanded every ounce of energy in my body, mind, and soul. The personal growth I experienced during this time period is something that has shaped my life forever. September brought about a ton of adventure in Paris and by this time fall had already crept up like a bandit. I was working less, laughing more, and doing such cliche things as: biking around on a beach cruiser with a bottle of wine, a baguette, and a wheel of cheese in my purse. I was pic-nicking under the stars and under the twinkle of the Eiffel Tower. Fall for me brought a trip to see my grandparents, a trip to Germany to see a college friend, a trip to Switzerland to go hangliding, and a local trip to Chartres which blew my mind. I went back to the states for the wedding of two of my best friends in college (who coincidentally are now divorced). I met a man who showed me what real love felt like. I shot him down for three months until I decided to date him for a year and half. We both wandered ourselves out of a relationship and into a relationshit. That year and half, good and bad, will forever me emblazoned in my brain and heart. I lived with another man who sadly preferred his own sex to mine, but colored my world with warm love and happiness. Correction, not just my world, every world he came in contact with was infected with his character. I let go of a lot of ideals that the world I grew up in told me I had to hold onto and exchanged them for something I felt was a little more rational.
You know when something makes you so sad that the back of your lymph nodes start to ache and that ached just spreads into your nose and then tears just kind of naturally well up in your face? That's the kind of pain I get when I start to miss Paris. But the Paris I miss will never exist again and that's why there is an ache in my lymph nodes right now. After little success in trying to recreate the type of life, love and friendships I had in Paris in Houston, Austin, and NYC, I came to the realization before I left for Asia that I no longer wanted to be a nomad. I've always heard about this stage in life, but never really thought it'd happen to me like it is now. I want to stay in one place, have a bed to crawl into at night, make money in a cool city that doesn't consume my soul, and live a balanced, healthy life full of happiness and adventure. I am happy now. It's not the euphoric high I experienced in Paris, but it is a good, steady kind of happy. A very healthy happy.
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| Merry Go Round that is my life |
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