Goodbye my friends
If there's anything that has kept me going through the past eight years, apart from hubski (the reason I ended up in France in the first place), it's my friends. I'm picky about friends, but there are four or five people who have earned themselves this dubious honour. My only regret in leaving France is leaving them behind.
Today we had a farewell picnic in our local park. We are heading off in August (but this blog shall live on, as I'm only just getting into my stride) and today was one of the last times everyone could get together.
Friends are a reflection of ourselves, and during my time in France people have come and gone. When I arrived in 1998, I tapped into hubski's social circle, which consisted mostly of fellow 'cast members' - a phrase guaranteed to strike fear into anyone who has ever worked at Disneyland Paris. I spent the first six months in France officially homeless, illegally sharing hubski's room in the cast members' accomodation. I remember rooms crammed with various nationalities and varieties of alcohol. We eventually, tiring of the lack of privacy, managed, after a military-style bureaucratic campaign lasting several months, to rent a flat (the last straw was when hubski witnessed our Spanish housemate doing imitations of how I farted in the morning (the walls were thin) to an entire bus on the way to work. It was all in Spanish and hubski can't speak Spanish, but he assured me that he was not mistaken. There were sound effects.) Eventually, most people melted away or went back to their home countries.
Then I bumped into an acquaintance from university on my first day at work. A fellow language graduate, we both taught in a large private language school, EFL being one of the few work options open to us. Then a couple of people we knew from Toulouse turned up in Paris. After that, I got a job at an international organisation, full of other young foreigners, and before we knew it, we had an active social life on our hands. The only slight disappointment to me was that very few of our friends were French, and of those that were, all were men, usually my friends' boyfriends. Any fears I had that this was somehow to do with us vanished when I realised that nobody else, even the attractive, popular ones, seemed to know anybody French either.
Our first 'couple' friends we met in a bar on New Year's Eve 1998. Hubski, the worse for wear, staggered off to the loo and returned 45 minutes later with a new best friend - Jorge from Mexico. He called his girlfriend over, Cristina, a vivacious Spanish girl, who brought with her Sandro, 75 years old and slightly disorientated, but nonetheless thrilled to be there and be included (it was that kind of evening).
As the years went by, we both changed jobs again, and this time the workplaces were less friendly, more formal. One by one people split up, moved away. By then I was expecting my son, following a spell of soul-searching during which I decided that, at 26, life was trickling by meaninglessly (boy, was that a long morning at work).
The arrival of my son triggered a move to our current flat. I found myself in a new town, with a new baby and newly unemployed, knowing nobody. That year was wonderful, but lonely. My salvation came through joining a 1000-strong group for English-speaking mothers, and accosting anyone I heard speaking English in the park. After a year, I found out about the one playgroup existing in my town (state-organised, naturally), and got to know a few people through that. Four years down the line, I finally feel as if I have a little circle. And I'm leaving.
I somehow never thought that this phase in my life would come to an end. I thought I would always be able to call my half-French friend P., my American friend L., and my Hungarian friend N (the only friend I speak French to). Life goes by quickly, and every moment matters. But objectively, I can see that the time is right. Our children played together when they were babies, but now they are at different schools and are starting to choose their own friends. People have gone back to work, have less time, and might be moving on themselves.
I know that we are on the threshold of something new. And I have a feeling we'll have visitors.
Today we had a farewell picnic in our local park. We are heading off in August (but this blog shall live on, as I'm only just getting into my stride) and today was one of the last times everyone could get together.
Friends are a reflection of ourselves, and during my time in France people have come and gone. When I arrived in 1998, I tapped into hubski's social circle, which consisted mostly of fellow 'cast members' - a phrase guaranteed to strike fear into anyone who has ever worked at Disneyland Paris. I spent the first six months in France officially homeless, illegally sharing hubski's room in the cast members' accomodation. I remember rooms crammed with various nationalities and varieties of alcohol. We eventually, tiring of the lack of privacy, managed, after a military-style bureaucratic campaign lasting several months, to rent a flat (the last straw was when hubski witnessed our Spanish housemate doing imitations of how I farted in the morning (the walls were thin) to an entire bus on the way to work. It was all in Spanish and hubski can't speak Spanish, but he assured me that he was not mistaken. There were sound effects.) Eventually, most people melted away or went back to their home countries.
Then I bumped into an acquaintance from university on my first day at work. A fellow language graduate, we both taught in a large private language school, EFL being one of the few work options open to us. Then a couple of people we knew from Toulouse turned up in Paris. After that, I got a job at an international organisation, full of other young foreigners, and before we knew it, we had an active social life on our hands. The only slight disappointment to me was that very few of our friends were French, and of those that were, all were men, usually my friends' boyfriends. Any fears I had that this was somehow to do with us vanished when I realised that nobody else, even the attractive, popular ones, seemed to know anybody French either.
Our first 'couple' friends we met in a bar on New Year's Eve 1998. Hubski, the worse for wear, staggered off to the loo and returned 45 minutes later with a new best friend - Jorge from Mexico. He called his girlfriend over, Cristina, a vivacious Spanish girl, who brought with her Sandro, 75 years old and slightly disorientated, but nonetheless thrilled to be there and be included (it was that kind of evening).
As the years went by, we both changed jobs again, and this time the workplaces were less friendly, more formal. One by one people split up, moved away. By then I was expecting my son, following a spell of soul-searching during which I decided that, at 26, life was trickling by meaninglessly (boy, was that a long morning at work).
The arrival of my son triggered a move to our current flat. I found myself in a new town, with a new baby and newly unemployed, knowing nobody. That year was wonderful, but lonely. My salvation came through joining a 1000-strong group for English-speaking mothers, and accosting anyone I heard speaking English in the park. After a year, I found out about the one playgroup existing in my town (state-organised, naturally), and got to know a few people through that. Four years down the line, I finally feel as if I have a little circle. And I'm leaving.
I somehow never thought that this phase in my life would come to an end. I thought I would always be able to call my half-French friend P., my American friend L., and my Hungarian friend N (the only friend I speak French to). Life goes by quickly, and every moment matters. But objectively, I can see that the time is right. Our children played together when they were babies, but now they are at different schools and are starting to choose their own friends. People have gone back to work, have less time, and might be moving on themselves.
I know that we are on the threshold of something new. And I have a feeling we'll have visitors.
posted by francesca tereshkova | 1:12 PM
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