Lost and Found in Paris

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
— Ernest Hemingway

The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older — intelligence and good manners.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris is a woman, and New York is a well-adjusted transsexual.
— Angela Carter

34 years ago, I visited Paris for the first time on a Eurail pass that my parents gifted me after I graduated college. My mother had given me a choice: I could have a graduation party, or I could have a roundtrip plane ticket to Milan and a 30-day Eurail pass as my graduation gift. For a kid who loved to travel and who wanted to extend his Peter Pan boyhood just a little longer, it was not a difficult decision. I took the tickets.

I arrived at Gare du Nord on August 14, 1990, after having spent the prior two months hanging with my grandmother in northern Italy and daytripping with my aunts and cousins to nearby towns and to Switzerland, which was only a 15 minute drive away. Let the record reflect that when I entered the City of Light for the first time, I was a backpacking, wet-behind-the-ears 21 year-old in the middle of the first solo trip of his life. My excitement about my pioneering adventure through foreign lands was tempered by the fact that I was broke as fuck. My parents had given me a little walking around money before my trip, but they were maxed out after funding my college education for four years, and now they had Sister J. and eventually Sister T.’s educations to worry about. So to support my travels, I mostly relied on money I’d saved from my supermarket job. As I arrived in Paris, I was getting my first real taste of what life was like when your parents aren’t supporting you, your meals aren’t supplied by a college dining hall or your mother, and you have to budget your money or risk having to dumpster dive for your dinner. This was quite the wake-up call indeed.

I gave myself only three days to spend in Paris, a city that I’d been fantasizing about since my high school French class, when Ms. Patenaude taught us about French history and showed us pictures of beautiful Parisian streets, monuments, art, and culture, while also teaching me to say: ‘Je m’appelle Tim, comment appellez-vous?’, ‘C’est une jolie chemise, où l’avez-vous achetée?’, ‘Où est la salle de bain?’ and ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’ (Okay, I learned that last one from Patti LaBelle.)

Ms. Patenaude’s passion for Paris was truly infectious, and she made me fall in love with the city from afar, years before I got to see it in person. Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, Sacre Coeur, and Les Invalides, where Napoleon is buried, fascinated me the most, and they were at the top of my list of places to visit one day.

On August 14, 1990, I finally got to Paris. Given my limited time and resources, I stayed in a cheap, centrally-located, fortunately bedbug-free youth hostel that I found in ‘Let’s Go Europe’, a thick-ass book that I carried with me everywhere despite its size because we didn’t have Trip Advisor or uh… the Internet back then. Old heads like me remember this book fondly because it was a travel talisman, the closest thing we had to Google decades before it was invented. I ate relatively cheaply, mostly living off croques monsieurs during the day and splurging on a cafe meal for dinner. Uncertain about taking the Metro and not wanting to miss anything, I walked everywhere, until my young legs finally began to betray me.

I cannot convey in words how thrilled I was to be in Paris for the first time back then. I was in awe of everything around me and couldn’t believe I was really seeing the things I’d read about and heard about in person. I also kept a journal of my travels, which I just dug out of a cabinet.

Here is what 21 year-old me had to say about Paris, word for unvarnished word, 34 years ago:

Aug. 14, 1990
Paris – I made it! Wasn’t easy – long train ride last night – nobody in the compartment talked + I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get a seat – it was jammed. Landstuhl was a washout – everything was closed, it rained, dull, drab. Tested my patience with dad to the limit yesterday. Tough climb up to the base “No rooms available due to Operation Desert Shield”. Had a good laugh or two at the train station before I left though. Must have said good-bye five times as trains we thought were mine zoomed passed us. We were on the floor.

Spent today waiting in line at AJF in Gare du Nord, seeing some of the sights – the bridges + Notre Dame. My room isn’t that great but it’ll do. I can’t believe I’m here. I’m in fucking Paris. Alone though.

1. Spaghetti carbonara outdoors – 90F
2. Almost got hit by motorcycle on Pont Neuf.
3. I think French women are by far my favorites.

Aug. 15
Must have walked through every corner of Paris today. Have yet to use the Metro other than to get to this place. Hotel des Invalides and the Georges Pompidou Center today. Not to mention the Forum des Halles, an underground mall. Each was incredible in its own way and I was impressed. It rained a lot and I got soaked trying to get home. Almost went to the Louvre today but the line was way too long. Have to get there early tomorrow. Still can’t believe I’m here. This city has a certain feel to it. It resembles Washington, D.C. in many ways – but its history is much longer and the people more diverse. Everywhere I went today I felt like it was the place to be. There were tons of people everywhere. Also drank a cup of coffee where Lenin + Trotsky hung out as political exiles at Le Select. The coffee was good but the waitress was a bitch. I’ve seen much of what I want to see; the only two major things left are the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur. I’ll have to get into the Louvre and down by the Champs Elysee too. I think 3 days (4) will be enough for me. In order to stay longer, I think I’d want someone to share it with.

Le Petit Garrett – Rue Descartes
Salade de Roquefort avec Noix
L’agneau
De la Glace

Earring – Nikita on Rue Descartes or Thouin

Aug 16

Today – another long walk – I’m dead again. Saw the Louvre, Champs Elysee, Arc de Triomphe de L’Etoil et La Tour Eiffel. That’s a lot to cram into one day. At the Louvre that’s what I felt like I was doing. The crowds and enormous lines really wore me out. I could have enjoyed it more. But I came face to face with the Mona Lisa, Victory at Samothrace and Venus de Milo. I also saw 2 enormous paintings by David that I love. One of them was Napoleon crowning himself emperor and the other (I think it was by him), was the Raft of the Medusa – no that was done by Gericault my book says. Anyway, those were pretty special. The Louvre takes a day or two to visit, with less people. The Champs Elysee was pretty cool, though hunger and intense gas hampered the first half of my trip down there. Mobs of people and incredibly expensive stores all around.

Didn’t feel like standing in line to go to the top of either the Arch or the Eiffel Tower. I’m really sick of crowds. I made it to the second level of the tower – the lines for the elevator to the top were enormous. Where I got was good enough for me, nice view.

Starting to think I should have started to use the Metro. My legs are aching. Too tired to even go out and look for food. Tomorrow I leave for Nice. Didn’t get to everything I wanted to see, but the money goes fast here and I need to leave something for next time. I really like being here though. Got my haircut today. 100F ($20) and he took a shitload off. It should be a good base for when I grow it out. A Lebanese guy cut it. I entered the place on a whim when I was walking down Rue de Montparnasse. I really had to go to the bathroom – so I don’t know why I went in. But it said Italian-style haircut on the outside maybe that’s why. I asked the guy if he spoke Italian and he said “no.” So I’m like, oh great – here we go again. another false advertising just like the 65F menu last night.

But he did a good job – carefully sculpting my hair though he shaved a shitload off of the sides and back. I can see skin on both. Good base though. A haircut’s not supposed to look good the day you get it cut.

Something to elaborate on when I have time:
– the French, how seriously they take food, fashion and manners – noticing subtle little gestures, etc. The restaurant last night was a good example – after I was done, they let me wait until I was ready to leave – then with a flick of my finger the waitress who was casually looking over to give me the chance nodded and brought my check. No loud “check please!” like in the States. A different way – but I like it.

The service places have somewhat altered my opinion of French people – not all of them are snotty, arrogant + rude. More than one helped me out right when I got here, without me even asking.

________________________

Well, this certainly is an interesting read now. Some things haven’t changed, like my appreciation for French women and taking care to budget my money while not being afraid to splurge on things like good food and a nice haircut (which I now do myself, thanks to genetics). Other things have changed, as I’ll elaborate on below. But it’s kind of hilarious how I sound like myself in those entries all these years later. I guess it’s to be expected.

I have pined for a return to Paris ever since my trip there as a young man. It’s always been in the back of my mind because I didn’t spend remotely enough time there 34 years ago. I’ve always wanted to go back and do it the right way–stay somewhere nice with no shared bathroom and take my time to view the sights with someone special. As a 21 year-old, I was obsessed with counting every French franc because I still had half of my Eurail trip left, and I was paranoid that I was going to run out of money. But what gets lost in my journal entries, which, Virgo-like, focus on minutiae like logistics and annoying crowds, is how much I loved my brief stay in Paris, and how surreal it was to have everything Ms. Patenaude showed us appear right in front of my incredulous eyeballs. It’s also funny how much I forgot about that trip. After re-reading my journal, I now remember that I was obsessed with the bridges that cross the Seine–I wanted to see, photograph, and walk across all of them, especially Pont Neuf, where I apparently was nearly run over. Ms. Patenaude had taught us about the history of each of the major bridges, so I was very fixated on them. I also forgot that I bought an earring there – I wonder which one it was and where it is now?

Anyway, I really didn’t think it would take me three and a half decades to return to Paris, my second favorite city in the world after New York. On reflection, there are two reasons why it took me so long to go back. First, it’s hard for me to go to Europe without going to Italy to visit my family, whom I don’t see often. So Italy has always been a priority for me, and I’ve been there several times since 1990. The second reason is that I’d convinced myself that if I ever went back to Paris, I needed to go with a girlfriend or wife and share the experience with them. I didn’t want to go back alone. This is another thing that comes through in my journal. When I visited Paris in 1990, I was lonely and sorely missing my college girlfriend like a lovesick puppy. She’d made me a mixtape before my travels, and I remember how I listened to it over and over again on my Walkman as I traversed Paris like a solitary drifter. Paris is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in the world, so to be there alone and missing my girlfriend, who was thousands of miles away, cast an unfortunate melancholy over my visit in spite of how excited I was to finally be in Paris.

Back then, I believed that the optimal Parisian experience is one shared with someone else. Back then, I felt like I needed a partner to experience beauty in the world and live my best life. Back then, I was a little bit lost. I may still love French women like I did then, but my mentality on solo travel and relying on another person for happiness or an optimal life is totally different today. Like 180 degrees different.

Last May I decided that I’d waited long enough to see Paris again, and contrary to my misguided thinking as a younger man, there was no reason that I needed to share the experience with anyone else or wait for the ‘right person’ to come along (whatever the fuck that means). I was the right person. Me. I’ve finally learned that I don’t need anyone else to be happy, much less to do the things I want to do, see the places I want to see, and have the experiences that I want to have in life. I’m enough. Yes, sharing experiences is nice, and I’m definitely open to it, but it’s not required or necessary, and for me, it never will be again.

In planning my first solo overseas trip in a decade and a half, I considered other places that I want to visit–Scotland, Stockholm, Prague, Copenhagen–even Istanbul–all of which had cheap tickets available and were good solo travel destinations, but Paris kept beckoning me. So I decided to spend my 56th birthday in Paris, 34 years after my first trip there, almost to the day. This would be a celebration of my life and a gift to myself after years of submitting to destinations that other people chose, or where I felt like I ‘should’ go or needed to go to please other people more than myself: Florida to see my mother, Italy to see my family, NH to show my daughter where I grew up and reconnect with old friends, Dallas and Los Angeles to visit Ex.’s family, Chicago and Louisiana to sustain a long-distance relationship, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Orlando, Phoenix, and countless other places for work, and on and on.

Paris would be for me and me alone. I’d spend a week there, not three days. I’d plan ahead and orchestrate what I wanted to see and when so I didn’t exhaust myself like last time. I’d stay in a nice hotel with my own bathroom, not a youth hostel. I’d eat well and go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. I’d visit Sacre Coeur and Place Pigalle, which I missed the last time. I’d do a tour of the Louvre, take my time to see what I wanted to see inside that massive place, and not rush through it like before. I’d tour Versailles, another place that I’d wanted to visit back in 1990 but didn’t have the time, and hang at the home of my favorite egomaniacal monarch, Louis XIV, the Sun King. I’d go to the very top of the Eiffel Tower this time, and I’d do it on my birthday. I’d visit the Creed store, and I’d buy cologne VAT-free. I wouldn’t count every fucking dollar like that poor bastard 34 years ago had to. My 55 year-old self, who has worked hard and sacrificed to achieve a certain station in life, would repay a debt to my 21 year-old self that when I eventually returned to Paris I’d do it right.

It’s ironic that my younger self would view my current mentality as totally selfish and ‘less than’ because he idealistically believed that Paris had to be shared with someone else to be fully appreciated. Anything less than this would be a failure. He wouldn’t understand me returning to that beautiful city by myself when he’d been so lonely there. Like I said, that young man was lost, caught in the bear trap of a pining, angst-ridden love that undermined his Parisian experience unnecessarily.

And for what? All the puppy love and angst in the world didn’t prevent that relationship from ending a year and a half later due to life circumstances, timing, and an extended long distance separation that sent him to California and her to Dijon, France for a semester abroad. So who did all that emotional pining ultimately serve? No one. That young Fool didn’t know anything because he hadn’t experienced life yet. It would take him decades to learn that it’s not selfish to love and appreciate himself, give himself what he deserves, and make himself a priority. That doing these things is the only way he’d stop living for other people instead of himself. That doing these things is the only way for him to create the circumstances for the right people to enter his life and compliment it in the right way, rather than him sacrificing himself to suit other people’s needs and desires. That he shouldn’t be afraid to be alone when offered any less than this by the wrong person. That being alone is not a curse or a failure, as he believed, but rather, a blessing and a gift. That the real curse lies in repeating negative behaviors and counterproductive patterns in life through a lack of self-awareness and self-love, and a fear of being alone.

Twelve days ago, I returned to Paris after 34 years. Twelve days ago, I began one of the best trips I’ve taken in my entire life. Twelve days ago, I repaid a debt to my younger self and honored my current self in a special and unique way.

It’s hard to convey how all of this felt for me, to time-travel back to Paris and go solo again after so many years of doing the opposite, except to say that it was liberating and restorative. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed traveling in this way. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much of my high school French is still serviceable and there when I need it. Apparently, it’s stored in a more easily accessible brain folder than I thought. I loved the challenge of not immediately knowing the language and having to pull from my memory to speak. It was actually fun, and of course, I had Google Translate available when I needed it.

Sidenote: having all of this information in the palm of my hand–Google Maps, Trip Advisor summaries, restaurant locations, a reservation maker, a ticket buyer, turn-by-turn directions anywhere I wanted to go, a book or social media to read when eating alone, a mobile ticket holder, and a foreign language translator in a pinch, like when my taxi driver took me from de Gualle Airport to the Creed store instead of my hotel because he read the wrong address on the “destination notes” on my Samsung when he picked me up–is mind-blowing. These minicomputers we carry around without thinking have made travel and solo travel in particular soooo much easier. They’re true game-changers. So much so that on this trip, instead of being paranoid about spending too much money, I was paranoid about losing my phone or having it pickpocketed. My entire life is in that thing, so I protected it like my own child.

I ate well, wherever I wanted and didn’t worry about the cost. Not that I went to Michelin restaurants or anything, but fuck, eating alone is way cheaper than paying for two people on some of these NYC Hinge dinner dates I’ve been on, so I’m a goddamned bargain by comparison. I must have had escargot five times, steak au poivre, l’agneau, croissants, cafe cremes, surprisingly good Neapolitan pizza, fantastic wine, and my favorite beer, Kronenbourg 1664. Each time I sat down to a nice meal, I thought of my Zio Saverio, a gourmet chef, who introduced me to escargot, oysters, and bouillabaisse, and took me to France for the first time–Normandy, Marseille, and other French cities–on a multi-week, family road trip in a van when I was 15 years old. Of course, I didn’t fully appreciate anything then because I was a moody and hormonal 15 year-old who was tired of being around family and sick of not controlling his own destiny.

Here’s a slice of the pouty bitch I’m talking about, sitting in the back of that van next to one of my sisters:

God damn I was skinny at 15. And look at that glorious mop of hair!

Sidenote: technically I *saw* Paris for the first time not at the age of 21, but at the age of 15 through a window of that van when my uncle drove us through Paris for a couple of hours in the summer of ’84. We were supposed to stay in the city for a few days and see it properly, but when we got there, we were followed by two a-holes on motorcycles, and my uncle got worried that our shit (or the van itself) would be stolen if we stopped and stayed somewhere in the city. So instead of staying in Paris, we drove by various Parisian sites that Saverio pointed out to us like Clark Griswold in my favorite scene from ‘European Vacation’:

I was seriously bummed about this because well, I was already operating from a surly teenage baseline, and Paris was supposed to be one of the highlights of this trip for me. To not stay there was a real fucking downer. Then, as if the universe wanted to show me that yes Tim, things CAN get worse, those motorcycle riders followed us out of Paris, which made my uncle even more paranoid.

Before reserving a hotel during our various stops on this trip, Saverio, who was a real character and enjoyed the finer things in life, always asked us ‘How many hotel stars do you all want tonight?’ My sisters and I would always respond ‘Three!’ or ‘Four!’ or ‘Five!’

That night, he asked us the same question, and when we said ‘Three!’ and ‘Four!’ he said ‘Well, I have some great news for you. Tonight, we’re going to sleep under ALL of the stars, so you can have as many as you want!!!’

Due to my uncle’s fear of getting robbed, we ended up sleeping in the van that night. All seven of us. I still remember it because in the middle of the night, Sister T., who was eight at the time, rolled off the back ledge of the van (where only she could fit) onto Sister J., who screamed and woke everyone up. My poor uncle ended up driving us around for hours afterwards until we all fell asleep.

Relatedly, I have no clue how my uncle made reservations or arranged the logistics of that trip without the Internet or cell phones – it’s miraculous that our road trips (we took two–the second one was through Spain after a two-week break in Italy in between) were as seamless as they were.

Back to 2024.

Here are some quick and random highlights from my trip, which will serve as my journal entries this time:

• It’s time to bury the notion that French people–or Parisians specifically–are rude or arrogant. I encountered so many kind natives on this trip, people who patiently listened to me cobble together enough French to ask a comprehensible question, order food, or ask for directions. Most spoke English without attitude and seemed to appreciate it when I tried to speak their language, which I always tried to do first out of respect for the fact that I was in their country, not mine.

• I love the fact that all the chairs in French cafes–which were on every other street corner–face outward towards the street so you can people watch. It’s an art form and part of the culture there. You stay as long as you want. No one bothers you to change over a table or get you out of there asap like in the States. Waiters come at the right time and aren’t nagging you every 5 minutes to confirm everything’s okay and ask you if you want something else like here. I really liked that.

• It’s a good thing that I walked nearly 60 miles while I was there (no exaggeration, just ask my watch) because I ate like a friggin’ pig. My legs ached again, but I’m proud of the fact that I’m in sufficiently good shape at my age that I could keep up with that 21 year-old whippersnapper without whining about it as much as he did. Also happy to report that I had no angry gas on the Champs-Elysees this time. Progress!

• I visited Versailles, which was a bucket list, dream come true experience for me, because I studied European history in high school and was fascinated by the French Revolution and Louis XIV, who was so over the top with his ego and extravagance that he woke me out of my sleepy stupor in that class and cracked me the hell up. Louie’s my favorite monarch by far, mostly because he wasn’t boring like the rest of those rich assholes. At least he made shit interesting. I took a tour of Versailles and got to see all the tributes that Louie made to himself, including a palace that is absurdly big and chock-full of (real) gold and a ridiculous baroque style that make Trump look like a piker. I got to see where Louis XIV slept. I got to see where Marie Antoinette slept. I got to see the hidden door that she used to escape the invasion of the palace during the French Revolution. I got to see the hidden door that Louis XVI used to sneak out of his bedroom at night to go fuck whomever he wanted. I got to see the Hall of Mirrors, which is both a spectacle and an impossible place to take a decent selfie. I learned that as a baby, Louis XIV had a doctor who had to taste his poo each day to make sure he was healthy. (Now that’s a sweet gig, amirite?!) But what was truly incredible was the garden located outside of the palace–if it can even be called a garden. That thing broke me. An OCD photographer who feels like he needs to take every picture + a garden the size of 3 football fields with incredible, Greek god fountains everywhere that you have to walk through a maze of hedgerows to find + a hot day + an idiot who wore long pants out of respect for his favorite egomaniacal monarch, were a bad combination. I could barely walk after my visit to Versailles, but it was an experience that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

• Speaking of photography, this was a big part of this trip for me. I took my camera everywhere and took hundreds of pictures. It’s hard to take a bad picture there, so even my cellphone pictures came out decently, but carting that heavy Nikon around was a burden that started to take a toll on my back by the end. I also brought the wrong backpack for walking around, so I’ll need to find a more user-friendly way to do this next time. Fortunately, I had perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold, and it didn’t rain, or it could have been worse.

• I bought a stupid amount of cologne on this trip, even for me. A truly stupid amount. I already have a decent-sized cologne collection, but this didn’t stop me from buying even more. I visited the Creed store within hours of my arrival to kill time when my room wasn’t ready, and I told the sales lady that I viewed the Creed store as a Parisian landmark just like the Eiffel Tower. She found this hilarious. I couldn’t even resist buying a bottle of Diptyque Eau de Minthe at de Gualle Airport on the way home because it was half price compared to the U.S., and I came this close to buying another bottle of Diptyque in a different scent (that fragrance house rocks). I seriously have a problem, but I rationalized my gluttony by convincing myself that (i) I was getting a nice discount on hard to find cologne; (ii) I received at least $200 in free cologne samples from Creed and Louis Vuitton alone; and (iii) I got to sample dozens of colognes I’d heard about, so I saved myself at least another $100-$200 by not having to purchase samples from Microperfumes or Scent Split just to smell them. This must be what a heroin addict sounds like when he downshifts to cocaine. Just look at this jackass:

• On my birthday, I took the Metro and visited Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and Place Pigalle, all of which are close to each other, for the first time. When I was in Place Pigalle, I thought of my father, who visited Paris when he was in the service, got drunk in Place Pigalle one night, and decided to get an ill-advised tattoo of a naked woman on his left arm. When he sobered up and realized what a bad decision this had been, he got a cover-up tattoo of a black eagle that was nearly the length of his arm. He was always embarrassed by this story and wouldn’t show us what the earlier tattoo looked like. My father died on my birthday, so being in Paris–and Place Pigalle in particular–on the day I was born and the day he died was an emotional experience for me, more emotional and bittersweet than I usually feel on my birthday. I felt his presence and really connected to him when I was there. I had lunch directly across from Moulin Rouge and then walked to Sacre Coeur and the surrounding neighborhood of Montmartre, both of which were spectacular. When I go back to Paris, I’m going to spend more time in that neighborhood. Then, after resting a bit at the hotel and taking a birthday phone call from my mother, I ventured to the Eiffel Tower for my 5:30 reservation to go to the top. It did not disappoint. I had multiple people ask me to take their pictures up there–I think they saw the big ass camera I was carrying and thought I was a professional or something. The top was jam packed with people, but when I walked the stairs down to the second level instead of taking the elevator (which was pretty cool in itself–I took a bunch of pictures on the way down), it was much less crowded and downright peaceful, so I stayed there for a while. Then I Facetimed my daughter so she could wish me a happy birthday and showed her the views from the Tower, which was pretty cool. Finally–reluctantly–I took the elevator down and ventured to a nearby street, where I hung out for the next two hours to watch the sun go down and see the Tower light up. Some people nearby had a boombox and were dancing to the music they were playing, which made it feel like my own birthday party. All in all, it was a great birthday, and it made me want to do something similar every year.

• On my second day in Paris, I was eating dinner at an outdoor cafe when I saw this old couple walk past me on the sidewalk. The man was a bit older than she was, dressed simply, with a short white beard. He was hunched over, clearly debilitated, and walking slowly with a cane in his left hand. He shuffled his feet as he walked and was having difficulty lifting each foot before taking a step, to the point that I was worried that he was going to trip himself. His wife was walking a few steps ahead of him, never going too far and always looking back to see where he was. She could see that he was having trouble, but seemed to want to give him his independence and the freedom to walk on his own, so she was letting him do it without her help. At one point, he stopped directly in front of me, pausing because he appeared to have overexerted himself. When his wife realized he’d stopped, she walked back to where he was standing. Then she smiled at him and gently caressed the right side of his face as if to say ‘It’s okay. Take your time. I will wait for you as long as it takes.‘ Her gesture lasted only a few seconds but was so loving, so pure and tender, that it moved me beyond words. They stood there for two or three minutes, waiting for him to gather himself. Then he nodded that he was ready to keep going, and they proceeded slowly down the street. Neither of them spoke a word to each other the entire time. I haven’t stopped thinking about this exchange since I got home. It was the purest expression of love between two people that I’ve seen in years, maybe in my entire life. As if Paris, the city of light and love, was showing me what true love really looks like.

I could go on and on, but best to end this post with an epiphany I’ve had since my return. For some reason, I feel that I am my truest self when I’m traveling overseas, not when I’m stateside. In foreign countries I feel free, open, and uninhibited in a way that I don’t always feel when I’m home. In Paris and even on the plane ride back, I spoke to random strangers from every walk of life and was open to conversations and any exchange that crossed my path. I approached people and didn’t wait for them to approach me. I spoke first. I don’t understand why this disparity exists in my personality, but it’s always been there, and I’ve noticed it on trips before this one. There’s something about being overseas or in a foreign country that releases me from my inhibitions, self-judgment, and the self-doubting parts of myself that hold me back from being my most authentic self. I never fully realized this before now, but I like that foreign version of myself more than my stateside self because that version is more who I really am than the other guy. And who is that other guy, really? Why is he the way he is when he doesn’t have to be? What’s preventing him from being more like that foreign traveler when he’s home, approaching people fearlessly here, not caring about rejection or feeling like he’s imposing on strangers just by talking to them? What’s stopping him from being his authentic, uninhibited self regardless of what happens or how people react? Why can’t that adventurous, open, not giving a fuck, not-perpetually-judging-himself foreign traveler be brought here?

I’m exploring the answers to these questions because there’s no reason why he can’t. I found that guy again in Paris, and it’s time to bring him home for good.