The cigarette in my hand was burning down and I was on the balcony talking to Ziming and Jagna. Up until this point I hadn't really talked to either of them beyond the ebb and flow of causal classroom conversation but this Saturday night we were talking about hopes and regrets - the two things that inevitably draw people together - as I stood there trying to hide my shivers.
I received an invitation to Ziming's apartment this Thursday for a small get together for IRFFLE students. My immediate response was to seek out some valid reason why I couldn't come - my habit, still strong after even 2 months here - and sent back a quick confirmation to stop me from backing down. I don't know why I feel this hesitancy to leave my room and forge connections with people - I suppose a part of this is habit and the other half is just the knowledge that whatever roots I lay will just have to be ripped away in a few months anyway.
But standing there out on that balcony in the cold night air with a cigarette in hand, I forgot all this. I became - for a minute - just a person sharing a smoke and casual chit chat with friends. I was not foreign, I was not a bad speaker. I merely was. And I realized just how easily it could be to push myself a little further into the lives of these people, to lay down roots.
But is this what I want...what do I want?
I want this weight that hangs heavy around my neck to disappear. I want the voices that haunt me to disappear. I want to walk away from Nantes knowing that I am not completely forgotten, that I have made some small mark upon a life there.
This is what I want - and it is all selfish. Selfish but true.
I received an invitation to Ziming's apartment this Thursday for a small get together for IRFFLE students. My immediate response was to seek out some valid reason why I couldn't come - my habit, still strong after even 2 months here - and sent back a quick confirmation to stop me from backing down. I don't know why I feel this hesitancy to leave my room and forge connections with people - I suppose a part of this is habit and the other half is just the knowledge that whatever roots I lay will just have to be ripped away in a few months anyway.
But standing there out on that balcony in the cold night air with a cigarette in hand, I forgot all this. I became - for a minute - just a person sharing a smoke and casual chit chat with friends. I was not foreign, I was not a bad speaker. I merely was. And I realized just how easily it could be to push myself a little further into the lives of these people, to lay down roots.
But is this what I want...what do I want?
I want this weight that hangs heavy around my neck to disappear. I want the voices that haunt me to disappear. I want to walk away from Nantes knowing that I am not completely forgotten, that I have made some small mark upon a life there.
This is what I want - and it is all selfish. Selfish but true.
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