Les jours tristes

I used to hate Paris, but it might have had more to do with him than with anything else. I somehow learned to appreciate it, to look past the flaws and the inconsistencies. I learned to feel at home in Saint Germain, to walk down Boulevard Raspail not feeling like a stranger or a misfit. I've always been weak that way, restless and dissatisfied, looking more in to to the future than in to the past.

It's not that I'm over it now, I just found a way of dealing with everything that used to hurt me. When I drink too much Champagne I still think it's a bad thing, that I've turned in to my mother, a careless person unable to feel anything other than emptiness and apathy.

The shootings last week reminded me that it isn't true, that I can still feel sadness and pain and despair, and as cynical as it sounds, it makes me happy. I remember what it was like once, when I was younger and not as badly damaged, and I know that the pieces of those days are still infused in my bloodstream, hidden somewhere deep beneath the skin and inside the heart.

I hurt just like anyone else, a week later, a week of roller-coaster emotions and scattered thoughts. I'm still here, I'm alive, I'm trying to go on living. I love you.