When I was nine years old, I fell in love with Paris.
Framed photos of Parisian streets filled my walls, Eiffel Tower statues and knick-knacks crowded my shelves. My days were spent tracing the Eiffel Tower onto notebooks, picking out berets to wear to class, and setting every short story I wrote in France – no matter the prompt. I even threw a Paris themed birthday party, with an Eiffel Tower birthday cake and decorations to match. I had never been to Paris, and I haven’t the slightest clue of how this love affair began, but it did. And from that moment forward, I promised myself that one day I would visit the city of my dreams.
As I grew older, my love never faltered. I would dream of mornings spent at Cafe De Flore, lost in a great novel or jotting down poems in a journal. Eiffel tower tracings turned into detailed drawings of seventeen year old me sprawled on a Parisian park bench with a bottle of wine. Everything would make sense when I was finally there.
When I heard about my university’s summer abroad program in Paris, I knew I had to apply. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t think I would actually go through with it. I could barely afford my rent, I had no savings, no job to keep me afloat. Surely, I wouldn’t actually go through with it.
With each month that passed, everything was strangely coming together. I got into the program, I won a couple of scholarships, I even landed a paid internship. I kept expecting something to go wrong, things like these never actually work out for me. But nothing ever did. Before I knew it, I was packing up and boarding my flight.
My first day on European soil was surreal. I remember staring out the window as we drove to our dorms, in sheer awe of the streets, lights, and buildings that were once confined to my imagination. But with the days that came, I found myself feeling lost.
It was hard to come to terms with the fact that coming to Paris wasn’t all I had made it up to be. I always thought once I arrived, I’d find myself, but I constantly felt like I didn’t belong. I would go to cafes by myself and feel a pit in my stomach, the anxiety of having to speak to someone that didn’t understand me. I was ashamed for not bothering to learn their language, to be in their country and be so naive. I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough. At the same time, I felt like I was wasting my time. I felt like my life was on pause. It was getting hard to live in the moment when I knew my life, my real life, wasn’t here.
I didn’t realize that following my dreams also meant there were things I would miss. I missed my friends, my apartment, my three-minute walk to Cork & Brew for an iced coffee to-go. I missed the ease of conversation in a language I knew. I missed the familiarity of my surroundings, of knowing which restaurants or bars were good and which weren’t. I missed home. But as I realized this, I felt ungrateful.
By the end of the trip, I became more comfortable with the city. My friends and I would board the metro and point out confused Americans and reminisce on how that was us just a few weeks ago. I learned how to order what I wanted at a boulangerie, how to navigate the city, how to blend in and adapt. I learned to live in the moment.
A week before our trip came to an end, we all decided we had to experience hanging out by the Eiffel tower to watch the sunset. So, we walked to the Cite Marche across campus to pick up some snacks and bottles of wine, boarded the Metro, and secured a spot on the damp grass across the Eiffel tower.
As I sat under the Eiffel tower, surrounded by people who were mere strangers just weeks ago, but have now become a precious part of me, I realized. I realized that the months of saving money, of figuring out flights, it was all worth it. I realized that there were peach kirs to be drunk, pain au chocolat’s to be eaten, cobblestone steps to be walked on. There were days of getting lost on the metro, walking until our feet were sore, and of struggling to communicate with waiters among us.
Under the Eiffel tower, where so many promises had been made by thousands before me, I realized I had finally fulfilled the one I made to my nine-year-old self. And it really was worth it.
—————————-
America is a rising senior at St. Edwards University. She is a Communication and Critical Media Arts major.