Loin des yeux loin du coeur

This French saying is true and false at the same time.
It's true because the farther the object or person that is dear to your heart is, the longer time passes, the more your pain caused by the absence eases and fades.

But as soon as you know you'll see it again, as soon as you know you are getting closer to it in place and time, the pain rises again, the hopes surge, you feel the blood pumping into your heart again faster and faster... Closer and closer... Sooner and sooner...

And if you have to leave it again, go faraway from it again, then the pain feels like your heart will explode and even though time and distance will soothe it, the wound has deepened.

There are only 2 solutions to it: keep away from it, never talk about it, hide away your feelings, bury it deep... Or stay with it forever, no matter what...
This choice is the hardest. Mine is staying here in my original country or leave again and go back to the country that did feel like home...

Feels like home...or not...

A year and a month ago, we came back "for good" to France, the country wherewe grew up, where we lived for most of our life. The country we still called "Home" for all the 7 years we lived in London. When we took our decision, we even kept on saying "We're going back home".
Yet, since we came back to France, it hasn't felt like Home AT ALL!

Thinking about it, I never felt like I was "home" for all the years that I lived in France. I always did feel like a stranger in my home country, in my home town.
Adolescent, only when I was going to Germany for 2 weeks every summer did I feel less like a stranger. I knew I was a stranger in the eyes of the new people I kept on meeting over there, but a different kind of stranger, the kind that people welcome with open arms, that people won't juge because they are different.Of course you're different: you come from a different country, with a different culture and different habits! Why would they juge that? And in the end, we always found similarities that made them accept me for who I was and not only because I was a stranger! So I wasn't so much of a stranger anymore and I found my-self feeling better over there, in Germany, than I always had back home in France.

Living in London, it was just the same as in Germany, to the additional fact that I wasn't the only one in this case, all the people around me were strangers living in the same town: not their home town. All these people were special because of this. They accepted it, therefore accepted them-selves and people around them accepted them for it too.
More to that, as people were able to accept each other for their cultures, they were able to accept each other too for their  character traits.

I've always had a certain capability to accept people for what they are, to try not to juge, or at least not straight away...to give the benefice of the doubt.
So when I entered this whole new community, this whole new mixed culture, I found my home.
I always thought that this non-belonging feeling I had felt in France vs. the do-belong feeling I had experienced in Germany was due to my adolescence. But seeing how hard it is to feel like home here in France vs. in London, maybe that wasn't only it, maybe France is just not my home country at heart, just on paper and where my family lives...

That would explain why the first thing I thought when waking up on the morning of our week-end in London was "I'm going back home!!!" with a strong sense of relief and the songI had in my head all week-end was "Feels like home" by Nora Jones, and the main thing I felt when leaving again to go to France was a suffocating tightening in my chest...

Have a second child?

Lately I've been thinking about having a second child quite a lot. Many things brought it to my mind:

• my Pepette is growing towards her 3 years old next summer: 

 She is growing A LOT! Becomes more and more clever and chicky, in constant movement. She's growing so fast we realised recently we had to subscribe her to the Maternelle down the road for next september! But she's also growing a massive Oedipus complex! Everything has to be done by Daddy, eat, put to bed, get up from bed, play... almost only Daddy gets hugs and kisses(unless she hurts her-self or is so tired she doesn't realises who picks her up)... Feels like I'm just there to tell her off sometimes. :( It gets very frustrating for me. I miss having my own time with her, like during breastfeeding times, when I just had to lie down and her with me, resting or taking a nap...when she used to be just a baby. So I miss having a baby. Don't get me wrong, beside all this, I'm so glad Elea is growing so well and she will always be my baby girl! I just need another one...

• new babies around: 

 there's been a few new babies in the family and friends. We went to visit them and carrying the precious little things in my arms (although they were all way smaller than my Pepette when she was born!) made me wish for a second one! The mums asked me loads of questions about how I took care of Elea, breastfeeding, the carrying scarf and how much we were able to go everywhere with her thanks to it, asked me to sooth their new mums-worries...etc. All this reminded me of how much I liked breastfeeding, how I enjoyed walking around London, how careless I was of all the usual mum-worries, which made me enjoy it even more...

• looking towards the future: 

Now we came back to France and are starting to settle down, I'm trying not to look back at the past, London and how much I miss my life there, but I'm forcing my-self to look forward. Well it's not a very far future I'm looking at (I'm completely incapable of this), but towards the next year or two. Amongst other things, I'd like for us to have a second child in the next year or two so that Elea and him/her won't have too much age difference.


But when should we do it? We're planning on a few things in the next couple of years...

•  buying a house (necessary for a second child), which means it would have to be done before we kick off the baby-making sessions (not just the playoffs ;) ) 
• getting a PACS (pacsés like we say in french) for administration matters like...lower taxes to pay. 
• but why getting a PACS, why not getting married instead? 

Yeah you read well, I said it: why not getting married instead. I always thought it was silly do get a PACS when it's the same as a wedding: signing a piece of paper at the townhall, minus the party and the fuss. I'd rather have the party that goes with it and have some fun!
OK but getting married takes at least 1 year to prepare + if ever we do it, my man wants to do a proper proposal... That means baby + wedding...errrrr not sure about the idea of getting married whilst preggie and looking like a Zepplin!

 Arf it's all so confusing and frustrating! Well I'm sure I'll make some sense out of it sooner or later...

Crooked smile

An ad in the tube for a health insurance says: "M., 28 looking for dental specialised health insurance." ... May be because the guy has a crooked/wonky jaw but not because of his teeth: they looked perfect!

Lost in transition

Since over a month now, I moved back to France.
For this reason I'm changing this blog from French to English in order to keep up with my English.
But that's not the point of this post.

Since I've been back to france, I kinda feel lost, lost in transition. Indeed, moving from a country to another involves been in a transition period for a little while.

First, a new job. It's a much bigger transition than I expected! Indeed, you're in a brand new environment, with brand new rules ... or in my case much less rules than I used to have in my previous company that was a big corporation vs. today's small but ever growing company.
A new ambiance: people are much more straight forward; is it due to the fact they are all French ? Or that there are only men (only 1 other girl besides me) in my section of the company? Not sure yet, may be a bit of both.
In a way I'm loving the straightforwardness because that's how I function too. But how silly as it may sound, I'm no longer used to it and find my-self stunned when someone is straight with me or when I see to people arguing (not in a mean way but still with slightly raised voices) on a subject yet still being mates afterwards!
Got to find a new way to get organised: it's not a bad thing for me since it was THE reproach I always got back at my old job.
I'm doing the best I can to keep up, using the tools I had been shown previously and I had never managed to use until now as my bad habits kept coming back. So far, it's been easier as everything is new so necessitates a different organisation. I just hope I'll keep up when it gets way busier!

Living place: the place where I'm living, it being at my parents' is of all the biggest transition. It's only temporary, while we get our other temporary place ready.
Yes you read well, another temporary place! Although we'll be staying quite a while (we actually don't know yet for how long), it will still be temporary because it isn't our own place.
But to get back to our first temporary place, my parents', it ended up being more difficult to adapt than I expected. It's my parents' place, where I lived for something like 11 years, so I thought I'd find my marks very easily. But it's different now, I'm different, I'm an adult with my own way of living, of doing things. Most of things feel odd now. It no longer is my place as well as my parents', it feels like living at some strangers - or more to say- at some friends place: although I'm having a hard time adapting to their ways, I understand them because I know and understand how my parents function.
So I guess it's easier than it could have been at some real strangers' place yet it isn't as much as I expected.

Family: now that we have our own little family, me, my man and our little daughter, being apart is difficult.
We had to be apart when we were students, for 6 months then 3, but isn't the same. Being a family grew us even closer, increased the dependence we have of each other, not only to take care of the little one, but for our whole life.
A new life means reorganising how we function and everything around it, we need to take decisions together. Taking decisions when you're two is already difficult, then try when you're apart, it's such a headache! Thank god for all the technology, phones and internet!
But it doesn't replace a good face to face discussion, looking at whatever you both wish together.
Getting the next temporary place ready is such a mess! Between the work we have to do in the place and the choice and purchase of some of the furniture...
Not only that, things like getting a new car, deciding on a childminder,...
Oh and all of it considering the fact that in that new country we're moving in (or country of origin yet...) everything is closed after 7pm and on Sundays. This leaves on Saturdays to do ALL those things I have to do because I work during the week! Even most of the home & building material shops and car dealers are closed on Sundays!
It makes the task almost impossible to get things ready on time for our first move from England to Paris!

But I'm getting sidetracked. The biggest piece of our family is our daughter. She's being separated from her father and although she seems to adapt perfectly, better than me even, I can tell she misses him. She's more aggressive, hits instead of kissing and hugging, moreover with me. My parents who help a great deal looking after her say it's just a phase every baby go through. Then why do I have that strange feeling it's not just that, it's also because she needs her family reunited? Am I reflecting my needs on hers? I do miss her dad so much and I miss her a lot as well, because I come home so late and barely see her on mornings. Her aggressive behaviour doesn't help my feeling of losing her a bit in some ways...

So yes I do need my family back together, my life back on a smooth path. For the moment, I just feel lost in transition.

Envoyé de mon iPhone

Secured vs. Insecured: army men in the underground

Why the he'll is there army men in the Paris underground? Oh right I forgot, although we're not at war in any kind of way, apparently we're meant to be never safe enough in the Paris transports nor in the streets. So our sweet government set factions of bored army and police men (remember we're not at war so they have nothing else to do) everywhere in French cities.

But seriously, do you feel any more secured when you have armed men watching you with a suspicious look while you cross the corridors of the tube dressed all smart to go to work? And anyways, they shouldn't give anyone that mean look for whatever reasons they find odd about you: look, race, the language you speak on the phone (because you're a tourist or a polyglot)...
Personally, I return them their look or comment when passing in front of them.

But seriously, wouldn't it be smatter if we really are SO unsafe to just have undercover people that watch us all but in an undercover/natural way?
Oh but I forgot, our government wants us to feel unsafe so using clever methods to counter whatever actual danger or terrorism is no something that fits into there National Security plans...

Well, all we can do is hope that their current plans do work in some ways : they surely will give them-selves a tap on the back because there was no terror actions during their reign!

Questions analytiques...

Ces dernières semaines, j'ai passé quelques entretiens pour le géant Google.
Ils ont apparemment un peu hésite, ils m'aimaient beaucoup et mon profile correspondait parfaitement au job, mais ne m'ont pas prise en fin de compte parce que je me suis plantée sur la question analytique.

La question: "comment calculeriez vous combien il y a de passagers d'avions dans le ciel en europe a cet instant?"

Et ba mazette, c'est pas facile!
Le mec voulait que je réfléchisse à voix haute. Mais; mon mignon, c'est un gros bordel dans ma tête, j'ai 10 milles pensées à la seconde, donc tenter de les dire à voix haute, forcément ça donne rien de concret ou sensé. En plus je pense en images, pas en mots (benefice/inconveignant inconvèniant inconvenient d'être dyslexique!) donc resortir toutes ces images en mots sans pouvoir les processer avant, bah ca n'aide pas à mettre de l'ordre dans tout ca!

Vous allez me dire, ça m'aura appris une leçon: ne pas réfléchir à voix haute pendant un entretien, processer le tout, le mettre dans le bon ordre et enfin déblatérer la reponse quand on est sure qu'elle est sensée!

Bon allé, je me laisse pas démonter par ce petit désastre, la question est du genre mission impossible (je suis sure que même Tom Cruise ou James Bond auraient bloqué sur la question, alors pouet pouet, hein!) et j'en ai tiré une lecon et je vais m'entraîner sur ce genre de "brain teasers".
Je ne me ferais pas avoir la prochaine fois!