Jagger is a LIAR!

Whoever said time is “on their side” never saw that semi coming. Time is not on our side. Be it moving too fast or too slow, time is the enemy of all things. Here it is: the end of Fevrier and I find myself floating somewhere between the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end of my stay abroad. As with all séjours, they never last as long as we want, or, in the case of the Donner Party, they cannot end soon enough. “Where do I fall?” Dunno. My time here has been wonderful. A much-needed respite from “real life,” France has taught me a few lessons—none of which I want to share with any of you. And not from knowing I can do something (such as this year) without said family and friends, but because I know I want to, I am liberated. I want nothing to do with the life that awaits me in the States. I do not want to escape it completely—I am not so naïve that I think I could. I just don’t want to continue on the path in front of me—not that I have any idea where it leads.
There are, however, some roadblocks I cannot help but see on the horizon: My education has forced my into an obscene amount of debt (the most vile of all 4 letter words) waiting to be paid off, seeing…people for the first time back*, narrating the same slide shows over and over again, and let us not forget, graduation and the final nail in the coffin of my youth. No, time is not on my side, for as long as time continues with its sadism, these are all inevitables I must face. And I can. I just don’t want to.
France, or rather, Europe has been great. I want to keep moving east and have the feeling I won’t be content to return to Washington until I must do so by crossing the Pacific. There is still so much I want to see and do. Thankfully, I am not one of the many students here who see this as my one opportunity. As I sit here eating my Asterix (lemon) and Obelix (strawberry) PEZ**, I am keenly aware that “I’ll be back.” I know I don’t have to shove all of Europe into my backpack this one trip. I have all the time in the world… Oh Shit! SEMI!
Or so goes irony. If you haven’t met her, she’s a bitch.
Yes, at the moment, that is where I lie. I am happy to relax and enjoy the pace of my “life” in France for now, knowing that I can spend my life doing those things I have always yearned to do (and fear not, I am of the cloth who actually goes out and does them) if I have the time. What if I don’t have the time? A semi’s trailer can be filled with worse things than death. Pregnancy, for example; Prince Charming, or perhaps more debt leading to criminal and otherwise unethical behavior, a desk job followed by suburban bliss (say it ain’t so), et cetera.
School ends in May. If all goes according to plan, I return to the States in August. There, I will finish my bachelor’s, consolidate my loans at a less-than-enviable interest rate, and sell my all of possessions to buy a ticket for the jet plane I’ll be leaving on. Wish me luck, eh?
And at the rate I’m going, I won’t have even finished telling my tales of Christmas vacation by then. “ARGH!” she screams as she strangles herself with the completely useless USB cable “connecting” her computer to the Internet.


*or ever again for that matter. There are certainly people I have not missed. The constant blather of certains, the over affection or lack thereof from others. No, I have not missed many people.
** I haven’t had anything to eat since noon, but as it is after 22:30, I am not in the mood to eat. Just snack. On PEZ.