may day.

Well folks, it isn't May Day. It's a week after, and yet I have today off as well. Armistice Day for World War II. Bless this country and its complicated history.

I haven't written in over a month because, to be frank, it's been a very busy and unexpectedly full month. Perhaps later this week I'll write about my recent trip to Spain and Portugal, but for now, know this: it was epic. And awesome. Thought-provoking. Hilarious. And a bit absurd. Expect pictures and anecdotes.

There is so much I should be documenting and sharing right now, and yet I feel neither the energy nor the motivation to do so. As Laura reminded me only an hour or so ago as we saw Pat off on her train to Paris, we both said several times at the depths of our misery last Fall that "we fully plan on being devastated about leaving Bordeaux come summertime." It was optimistic and a way to laugh about how shitty of a time we were both having amid the French corrections, the ulcer-inducing paperwork, and the many frustrations of our positions here. But.

It's summertime. The tears seem to know no end.

I have a little over a month and a half left but with my pals getting up and leaving, it seems like that month and a half are just a blink away. I know I should be appreciating every moment. I should be grateful that my time hasn't run out here in this incredible place. I should be smiling in the sunshine. But I have to be honest with myself. I am dreading leaving and my heart hurts.

After administering a catastrophe of a test to my oldest kids yesterday afternoon, I gathered my things together, and as I was walking out of my classroom, approached two teachers to wish them a good (extended) weekend. I hadn't seen one of them, Laurence, for a few days, and she came over to have a conversation with me in English.

Laurence isn't actually someone I work with in any way. I don't have any of her students, and despite this, she is probably the friendliest and most engaging "colleague" I have among the thirty or so teachers I see every week at my three schools. She's in her early thirties, and through scraps of conversations I've had with her and other people at École G, I've learned that she is in a professional theater troupe, and that she was at some point a language assistant in Germany for four years. Whatever her personal life, she is someone who, with disarming precision and sincerity, sees through my long-cultivated bullshit. She asks me the questions that none of the other teachers can or care to. She articulates my feelings in the French I can't seem to form. She can read me like a book. And when we're sitting in the teachers' lounge, and she borrows my ruler, she does.

Yesterday was no exception. After the compulsory hellos and how are yous, she got down to it: "So, have you heard back about your return next year?" (She is one of two teachers I've told about the renewal forms I filled out months ago.) I told her I hadn't, and then she asked if I'd purchased my ticket home yet. I was surprised when I found it very difficult to tell her that I hadn't - that I'm afraid to, because it makes the return home something real. I was surprised that I went so far as to tell her that I'm extremely close with my mom and brother, and that they want me to come home and stay home. And that I love them dearly but despise Los Angeles.

I expected a sympathetic nod and then a quick exit on her part, but I was - again - surprised to find her looking at me seriously. Really looking at me. She said "Yes, that is very difficult." I said "Yes, I have many decisions to make." Laurence: "One must make decisions. It's hard, but one must grow, advance, change." She looked at me for a good thirty seconds, both of us silent. I smiled awkwardly, or maybe grimaced. She told me to have a good weekend, and we parted ways.

The second aforementioned teacher, P-O, was talking to another school adult at this point and I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of interrupting the two. [I say "school adult" because this guy isn't a teacher; he hangs out with the kids after school and is involved in P.E.] The latter is a bit of a creep - he winks at me and makes consistently uncomfortable comments, and any time I can avoid his attention, I do. So when I caught P-O's gaze and mouthed "bon week-end" to him, I really wanted his response to limit itself to a nod of the head and nothing else.

It didn't. Of course.
He asked me if I had plans for this weekend, and when I told him I didn't know, he said "You don't know?" "Uh.. nope. Not yet." "Oh." "What about you?" He told me he was going to go to the countryside comme d'habitude, but with a gesture to the forming rainclouds above, wasn't too sure now. I stood there. He stood there. School Adult stood there. It was the point in the conversation when P-O should've said "maybe we could hang out?" but with the memory of last weekend's mess still fresh in the tension between us, and School Adult in such close proximity, we both settled on "bon week-end" again. I turned around.

I got about four steps before a mysterious force took over and I burst into tears. They came in fresh and fierce torrents as I stumbled through la garderie and out the school gates, trying desperately to stop. The school bus was conveniently parked right in front of the gates, and it only took a few seconds before I could hear my students tapping on the windows calling my name to say their hellos. I wear glasses in France, and often mascara too. It was the most I could do to wave to them without looking up while wiping the disaster out of my eyes.

It's just too much. Too much anxiety. Too much emotion. Too much tension and expectation and miscommunication and bewilderment. Too much attachment. Too many surprises and honest moments.

I cried after I told the bartender, Philou, at La Comtesse that that was our last soirée.

It's just too much.