La fin

I hate saying goodbye to people. Elli left last week and two Spanish-speaking friends in Brive left a few days ago. I’ve finished work, which means I’ve had to explain to small children that I’ll probably never see them again.

Things I’ll miss:

• People, obviously.
• Kaitie sneezed. Three people said “bless you” in three different languages. I’ll miss the silly things like this that happen in our daily lives.
• Also misunderstandings due to this multiculturalism and our different accents in French. The other day we were talking about how your hair still grows after you die. Maria said “and the nails” and somehow, because of at least one mis-hearing, it led to jokes about how we’ll be sexy when we die because our… chest area will grow.
• Bread
• Emilie’s crepes.
• Anouk insisting on holding my hand. I guess this goes under “people”…
• The ways people say my name in their language.
• Chocolate.
• Getting drawings from kids [with my name spelled n’importe comment. In case you were wondering, there’s no “q” in my name].
• Working in something that applies to (both!) my undergrad degree(s) and feeling occasionally useful.

Things I want to do when I get home:

• See people, obviously. My cat counts as a person. Well, I’m his human, but whatever. He’s the second most important. (Unrealistically. My family is realistically more important. But I don’t cuddle with them.)
• Hug!
• Hear the way my name sounds “without an accent.” I know I said I’ll miss it being said differently. I make no sense this way. I’ll also like that people will know how to spell my name.
• Be in situations that are at least slightly more logical. Like post offices having tape.
• A return to TKD. I think all my friends here can tell I have the restless legs. Even though my legs will be so sore…
• Peanut butter.
• Root beer.
• Wear more than the same few sets of clothes.
• Living somewhere where people aren’t screaming or crying every 30 minutes. Nevermind, that’s not a certainty.
• Having the convenience of things being open on Sundays and having everything I need sold at one store.
• This one applies to the first one. (And is kinda what I meant by part of it.) Cuddling. Not being so far away. Having some part of that sappy ideal movie William Wallace would have had if  the English hadn’t been so eager to kill people.

“What is my life?”

Possibly amusing moments where these words went through my head.

• Getting off the plane in Austria, I ran into a wall and said, “Pardon” in French.
• Asking the lady in the convenient store in the Brive train station for a bag because I felt sick.
• Almost anytime I’m playing some inventive game of Anouk’s. Particularly the morbid one where people pretend to fall to their deaths trying to climb up the slide. “Rebecca, it’s your turn to die now!” What?! What does she learn at school? But don’t worry, Jean is wise beyond his two years; he’s a doctor that knows all the magical reviving powers of sand and dandelions.
• I got a good story idea in the middle of class because my back hurt.
• The only day the bus is on time is the only day I’m 30 seconds behind it.
• I heard an unnecessarily loud plane today. Then I thought, “Oh, it’s almost time for Thunder over Louisville” (meaning that the planes would be practicing for the air show beforehand). Then I remembered that they probably don’t have Thunder over Tulle two weeks before Derby.
• Anytime I’m reflecting on life lessons/things I think sound meaningful and cool during something boring or when I should be paying attention to the world.
• Any time I think about the future, I realize I’m thinking about my days with French patterns. ex: having a two hour lunch break.