In Paris, I Became a Woman

Why haven’t you written a blog post since April, I hear you say (in my imagination, because I’m sure you don’t really care that much)? Well, I’m fully-fledged in my final school exams, those of which determine my suitability to going to the universities I have so chosen. I’m therefore embedded in the impossibility that is intense revision and concentration. This is my short break from that. So hey.

Three birthdays have occurred in April time, which I must not neglect to talk about. Demented Squirrel, this outrageous virtual body of strings of code that allow you to see these very words, has now turned a year older. I regret to say that I do not remember how old it is; which I suppose is a shameful fact that I will now go and cry about. However, it still means the world to me that it has been around for the years it has and represents an absolutely fantastic part of my life and passion. It keeps me writing, and it keeps me connected to you guys and your wonderful lives, of which only helps to improve my own and gives me great happiness. The soppiness-meter is beating with wild aggression right now. Happy birthday, Demented Squirrel!

The second is my cat, who is now an old man. It’s the first birthday he’s lived through without his brother, and my old best friend. (*sad face*) When you have cats from a young age, it’s always weird (in a good way) because they age faster than you. I turned from child to adolescent to adult(ish), and he grew from child to wild youth to the bit between to middle aged to old age pensioner. It really makes you realise how long you’ve spent here, in my childhood home with my parents that I’ve been so lucky to have. And it gives you a perspective of the whole life lived by us animals in this here world. It’s kind of beautiful. I hope I age with such grace of a cat. (Haha.) Happy birthday, Pitch! Thanks for all the high-pitched meows.

I am now an official adult. I’ve been harping on about this for months before, getting all nostalgic and sentimental, but you know what, what’s a blog for if you can’t get nostalgic and sentimental? It was a really important transition and I wanted to give it the weight it deserved. So if you did read “The Eclectic Mix of The Metamorphosis”, my kind of different to normal blog post, then I thank you kindly. People in my life made the whole experience one of the best that I’ve had, and I’ll treasure that.

As a celebration, my parents and I set off to Paris, France (I now have to clarify the ‘France’ bit because I’ve very recently watched Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas). I spent the last day of my childhood wandering around the beautiful city, eating crepes (they bloody know how to do crepes… obviously), eating everything else in the city and exploring. We took the Eurostar which was an interesting experience because I didn’t notice we even went into the tunnel or that we were in a different country until I noticed that the electrical pylons were 3-pronged at the top- that’s how I distinguish my countries.

One of the first places we visited was the Shakespeare & Company, the famous Shakespeare book company opposite Notre Dam, which is just romance embodied in building form. It is a place that gave sanctuary and a home to writers and aspiring writers when they needed somewhere to stay and just write. It is pretty astonishing and I could have spent my entire life just walking around in there. Upstairs, there were a few walls that people had written messages by hand on little bits of paper and pinned them on. They had a piano in the other room that at least six people sat by reading, and whilst we were there, somebody began to play. It was beautiful, and I was inches away from just breaking down into violent tears. It’s somewhere I know I must return to at some point in my life.

I stayed up late on a stomach full of salmon carpaccio and rare steak (oh, meat, my true love) for some quiet reflection on all things that had been my childhood; and came upon a nice revelation that whatever happened from tomorrow onwards wouldn’t change the absolutely wonderful childhood I had had. The times I spent with my parents and my friends being crazy and doing so many things would always be part of me. And even now, there will always be that comforting thought in me. That if I die tomorrow, it doesn’t change the life that I have lived. I kind of swallowed all the nervousness I had about the future and the past to just live in the moment for a bit- something that I think we tend to forget to do normally and would be lovely to do more often. And the next morning, I woke up feeling kind of content and comforted, and with a little bit of extra courage than usual.

With a few unmentioned other things, like going up the Eiffel Tower (on my birthday, be jealous aha!), trying out my very rusty French (GCSE level) on a taxi driver to make him drive faster – it didn’t work; he was pretty chill – and drinking hot chocolate with a massive grin on my face, we made it back home just in time to get pizza with my avengers (aka coolest friends in the world). And they weren’t just the icing on the cake, they were a whole feckin’ new cake which tasted so good. My friend’s taste good. I definitely didn’t say that.

It was the best birthday that I have ever and will ever have. I’m not big on birthdays, so this one was the one I thought was important. That and maybe, 100. Although, I don’t think I’ll make it that long. 100 year old me will eat my words if I do.