Dear Paris: 6 Months

Dear Paris:

I fell into your arms six months ago tomorrow.

Bleary eyed, wildly dazed and confused from an early morning train I was brought to tears by you.
You were stunning in your grandeur, your lips stained multicoloured with flowers and your skin spread with wide rivers and ornate bridges covered in locks declaring love and it made me believe in the elusive thing, and maybe I was falling in love with you.

You see, Paris, we'd been having a long distance relationship for months before then, and your picture was the one I turned to in times of frustration and desparation, in times of needing to know there was something more out there. And there was.

During our summer of wine drenched picnics in front of the Eiffel Tower and cheese and bread in Luxembourg Gardens, of bursting sunshine and throngs of visitors to our home, in early September nights I needed only you to keep me warm, I was enthralled by you. I still am, Paris.

The autumn of our love affair found me in turbulence, and I doubted you and myself and why I chose to come all this way to chase you down in the first place. I doubted you, Paris, and for that I am sorry. But stripped of everything I once knew, standing barren with only you, I fell for your flaws. It was in November and early December that your underbelly was exposed, during the days fogged with misty rain and the nights barely discernible from their counterparts. It was when you failed to be my source of heat that I found beauty in your grey. I found myself staring up at your sky today and wondering how such an inherently monotonous colour could be made so arresting, so stunning. You wear grey over slate blue and cream so well, Paris.

We took a break over Christmas. I think it was necessary.

With the new year I returned to you confident in myself, no longer requiring your approval, no longer placing unattainable expectations on you to uphold my childhood misconceptions. I also discussed a more open relationship with you, and although you will always be my first love, I discovered Amsterdam; breathtaking in its prettiness, Berlin; profound in a way that juxtaposed your superficiality (no offence), and Budapest; who some call your eastern sister, but I would argue she was an entirely different being, different from anything I had ever explored, almost fictional in her beauty. But I came back to you renewed, rejeuvenated. I promised myself I would appreciate you and discover you anew as I had the other three. And it's hard, because over the past six months our relationship has grown comfortable, routine. I need to feel scared sometimes.

Paris, I know our relationship has an expiration date, and that date is a mere four months away. But I look forward to our spring and our second summer, I look forward to discovering your hidden places left covered.

All in all, yours has been the most dynamic and terrifying, the most rewarding relationship I have ever had. People ask me how I'm liking you. There is no easy answer to that, but I do hope this helps to explain.

I love you, Paris.
And I hope you like me too.

Yours,
Coral
Xx