falling in love.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a crier. Not of the town crier sort, but of the "something is about to happen, here comes a rapid change of emotions" sort, leaving those who know me well nodding and smiling and waiting it out, while those who have just met me wondering if I am ridiculously unstable.

As far as I'm concerned, I am not.

I am the daughter of not one but two therapists. I have a lot of feelings. I've always had a lot of feelings. Not only do I have a lot of them, but I tend to express them, to revel in them, and whenever something funny or sweet or sad or serious or exciting or traumatic happens, my tear ducts make their grand entrance and I simply let my heart and eyes sort things out.

This was something that I was teased about greatly when I was little; it is something that I have learned to embrace now that I am not. Yes, I cry, but yes, I know it, and no it doesn't bother me much and no you shouldn't take it so seriously.

So when I headed to the airport yesterday to fly back to Paris, I was in tears. Just as I was in September. And just as I will be in April. No, that flight won't be leaving Philadelphia, it will be leaving Paris, it will be the end of this experiment in international living, and I am certain it will come with a host of emotions that will manifest themselves in a small salty flood.

Because if there is one thing that I have learned from having all of these emotions, it is this: I am very good at falling in love with wherever I am. As a twelve year old, I cried and cried and cried the day my parents dropped me off for my first stint at overnight camp. Two weeks later, when they came to pick me up, I cried and cried and cried. As a twenty year old, I cried and cried and cried when my parents dropped me off at the airport for my semester abroad; four months later, I was crying about leaving Paris. So yesterday, leaving Philadelphia after a two-week stay at home, I cried because I had fallen in love all over again with being home with my family, and though I knew I had a lot to look forward to in France, it is that simple transition of one place to another that gets me every time. Once I bury myself back in Paris (I've been back for twelve hours and I've already seen two of my friends), I know that I will fall in love with this place all over again and months from now I'll be thinking, "How did I ever think that I didn't want to be here?"

On Christmas Day, I was unreasonably unhappy because of a week-long stomach flu that was testing my patience and my intestines. I felt this enormous sadness creeping in while playing board games with my family and I realized that I wasn't so unhappy about being sick as I was about feeling that my time with my family is so limited. Now that all four of us children are done with our undergrads, we must bid farewell to the 4-6 week long winter vacations, the long afternoons in pajamas and the restless feelings of, "When will school start again?" The questions now are, "When will vacation start again?" "When will we find ourselves together again?" "When did we start getting too old for family game time?"

I hope that we never get too old to sit around the fireplace and laugh because we're bad at following directions and because Ian is attempting to train Nora's dog Eloise by barking at her. I hope that we never get too old to play board games and tell stories and have Dad come down the stairs wearing an Elvis Presley mask to greet our guests. And I hope that I never get too young to let my cry-ability get the better of me again; that is to say, I'm just starting to get used to it.