Oh Paris...

I think as long as you live in Paris, you will never fully become accustomed to the bipolar nature of this city. Days spent in awe of tiny snaking streets and sipping wine in an autumnal garden can give way to stormy nights filled with metro beggars and impersonal, cold buildings. Sometimes the hugeness and the pretentiousness of the city gets to me, as it does mostly everyone who has experienced the highs and lows of its mood swings.

Sometimes I step out of my apartment onto the street in the crisp autumn air and I look around and I fall in love with Paris.

Sometimes I climb the cobblestoned streets of Montmartre or sit in a park by Republique or sit in my apartment with wine and a good friend and I am happy here. I feel like I belong here.

Sometimes I think I could stay here forever, that this is where I was meant to be.

But sometimes I get lost in the areas of Paris where paint is peeling and facades are crumbling and poverty is prominent. Sometimes I see the people who tried to flee, the people who are stuck in the suburban limbo of the constant effort, the constant trying to achieve the beauty, the perfection of the city. A city that is far from perfect.

Sometimes I don't have enough money for a cup of tea and sometimes when I make tea at home my cup smashes on the cold stone floor and sometimes (every time) I climb the stairs to my apartment I am greeted by the cold, rotting smell of burning corpses and moldy walls. And my light switch doesn't work. And I feel very much alone and very much inferior and very much like I do not belong here.

And I think this year will be a lot of me being bounced around from emotion to emotion as I weather the storm and the tumult of city life, the profound loneliness and the moments of absolute joy.

Because really, what is a disgusting apartment hallway, a five euro cup of tea, or getting lost on the metro, when compared to the breathtaking hours of disbelief standing at the top of Sacre Coeur looking out on the city that tortures and pleases, day after day, the city I dreamed of, the city that birthed the dreams and the creations of so many others?

Insignificant.

And so worth it.

Oh, Paris, you're so worth it.