Where's Katie?

I have heard from quite a few people that they are sick of seeing my Bon Dimanche posting every time they come to my blog- disappointed that there is no new posting. I am flattered that I have regular visitors to my blog and thus thought for those who want more, the least I can do is provide a post.

In my defense of not posting, my blog is about my life in France. And well… currently I am not in France. In fact, I am as far away from France as I could possibly ever be. Okay maybe not exactly… as far physically. But I am the furthest I have been physically in the last two years, and I am mentally so check out of the French world it is insane.

It has been so absolutely wonderful being home. Home is home. I knew I loved Dorthy as a child, but I never understood her words as profoundly as I do not when she says… “There’s no place like home.”

My brain is loving up the English language. I do my best to try to think in French every once in a while and it is impossible. Absolutely impossible. My brain refuses. A friend and I watched a movie the other night and half of it was in French, and it even took me a moment to let it sink in that I was understanding the words they were speaking. I honestly believed I shouldn’t be. Because… well because I only speak English. I love the on demand “say something in French,” requests I get… and simply sputter out a “'Bonjour,' 'Merci,' 'Au Revoir'” The basic words they would already know, and await the amazed looks. (They have yet to come!) But it is impossible to explain to people the level of French I can speak- so I think they believe I really can only say hello and goodbye. Not actually accomplish anything real. But that’s alright.

In all actuality I have had a really difficult time perceiving the last two years of my life have been real. You know the part in the Wizard of Oz when Dorthy awakes from her magical world and tries to explain where she was, and points to her friends saying, “you were there, and you were there, and you were there…” but ultimately she is left in a confused state. Many times that’s what I feel like I am doing. Waking up from a dream where a few people made a cameo, but mostly everything in my natural world is different from the place I have just been and been transformed by.

Yesterday I cried for the first time about the thought of leaving California going back to France. I will truly miss leaving home once again. But I am also very excited to get back to France and my life there. This is my once chance and opportunity of something so unique and wonderful in my life. I am blessed to live in such a fabulous place, and be at a place where I am thriving in a foreign country. I am excited to see what the Frenchies are going to teach me in the year to come and excited to reunite with the friends I have there. To know that they are all real and not just some figment of a quite vivid two year dream.

I will be returning to France and blogging soon!

A Bientot!