October 5, 2021. Paris.
over the last month i left my apartment and moved back with my mother. after water leaks, cockroaches, many different kinds of bugs, constant dust and last but not least bedbugs, i decided i was done. my body was covered with bedbugs bites, the anxiety made it worst, the exhaustion made it worst, i had to go to the doctor and got prescription for antibiotics and two other drugs, which i was really not happy to take but couldn’t see how not to. i analyzed all my belongings and asked this very simple question: what is worth taking the risk to bring bedbugs with me? it appeared that very few things passed the test. i threw away half of my furnitures, half of my closet, and every non-vital thing i owned. i got confused though with all the garbage bags i filled and accidentally threw away all my jeans and yoga clothes. who needs twelve yoga pants anyway? on the way back to my mother’s house, with the car full of what i had decided to keep, i got a flat tire. i wish i was joking but i’m not, life was joking though and it was kind of funny.
the empty room at my mother’s house became an office while i was gone, which means i’m now sleeping on a single bed in a room filled with papers and files. good news is i don’t have many things left so i don’t need much space. i couldn’t sleep for a few weeks, looking for bedbugs in every corner of the bed, feeling anxious as soon as the light was off, always feeling something walking down my leg or biting my shoulder. and i developed this weird suspicion of having an exotic microscopic animal living on my skull, i swear i could feel him — was it a female though? — moving around, building his house between my hair and partying at midnight. i still scratch my head to this day.
over the last weekend my family went to Morocco — where i couldn’t go because i didn’t get the vaccine. it was raining hard in Paris, the sky was very low and grey. i was grocery shopping feeling that the world was so heavy when the woman behind me at the cashier said: “hey miss, you lost a ten euros bill.” i looked down and saw a ten euros bill on the floor which clearly wasn’t mine. she saw it on my face and said: “if it’s not yours, take it anyway, it will bring you luck”. i looked at her, pushed the tears back inside and repressed the urge to hug her. Parisian people are not huggers. i grabbed the ten euros bill and open my heart wide open for my luck to come.
it seems that she’s been lazy though, my luck. because between the moment i found the bill and now, i broke two bowls and the bottle of laundry detergent. the detergent travelled all the way onto the clothes i was wearing to go out and my brand new sneakers — all my former sneakers being seriously injured by the 60 minutes they spent into the dryer as an attempt to kill the potential bedbugs living in them.
i’m okay though.
last week i went to see my osteopath and when she asked about how i felt, i told her calmly: “i’m in a moment in my life when every time i feel like i hit rock bottom, the earth opens and there is another bottom to hit a few meters down.” she laughed, i laughed. she asked me to explain. i said: “my external life has never suffered as much as it does now, i don’t have anything i can hold on to. but my internal life has never felt safer, i’ve never felt as free as i do now.”
i’m experiencing a major misalignment. my outside life sucks. big time. i don’t want to be where i am. at all. but i understand it somehow. and a part of me feels grateful. it feels like life pulled me out of a place i have outgrown. i freed myself from needs i thought i had but don’t anymore. i don’t need twelve yoga pants nor shelves full of books. i don’t need material reminders of what i’ve experienced and accomplished. and more than that i don’t need to be anybody anymore. i don’t need people to make sense of the life i’m living, of the things i own, of where i’m going. i don’t have anything to prove to anyone anymore, not even myself.
maybe i had to get rid of everything to understand that, to feel it. until a few days ago, i was telling this story that i had lost everything, unconsciously trying to pull some compassion out of people. i don’t think that’s true anymore. i think i chose to get rid of my external life, every step of the way. i’m suffering from it. i’m really having a hard time. but i’m okay.
a few weeks ago i went to my cousin’s 40th birthday. her husband had organized this amazing surprise party. a lot of people were gathered in their house, everybody was dressed up, women wearing heels and beautiful dresses, men in suits, lights all over the garden, music and flowers. i was wearing a black pants with a black tee-shirt and sneakers. i thought about dressing up before going but i didn’t feel the need to. i thought about some past versions of me for a moment. when i was younger, i would have never gone out not dressed up, not wearing heels and make-up, i would have probably bought an outfit especially for the occasion. i thought about my younger me and wondered what she would think of me now. i couldn’t say right away. i went to the party and had a great time. on the dance floor i observed people around me, i saw the roles they were playing, who they thought they had to be, i saw women sitting down because their feet hurt from the heels, this is when i saw my younger me smiling at me, feeling proud that i didn’t need any of it anymore. i don’t need any of it to be me, to be seen as me. i saw her feeling relieved that i had freed her.
i have no idea what’s going to happen and i’d lie if i say that i’m not anxious about my life. i spend some days crying. and at some moments it feels like i can’t breathe, i have this weight on my chest that’s pushing hard. i feel lost. i feel frustrated. i feel alone. and when i’m very stuck in my head, i feel like this is all so very unfair, that i deserve better. but in my heart i know that i am strong enough to overcome everything that comes my way. i know that i won’t give up. i know that when life makes jokes, i’d better laugh. because nothing lasts. and sometimes when you look at it from another angle, it is funny.
at the end of the session with my osteopath, she said that i was ready. i have released my fears to be me and unlocked my talent. she said that i didn’t need to see her anymore, that what i wanted — even though i don’t know what it is — was on the way to be manifested. she said exactly what i needed to hear, except for the part that i didn’t need to see her anymore which freaked me out. i booked another appointment anyway. and for the rest, i’m waiting. i’m not sure what i’m supposed to do. i know that i can’t really do anything right now. i need some time to rest, sleep, breathe, and stop breaking everything i hold in my hands. and then, i trust that my heart will guide me.
how have you been?
i love you,
Camille
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“it feels like life pulled me out of a place i have outgrown”…. Isn’t is strange that we almost always have to be pulled?
I enjoyed the read and was reminded that everything we desire we already have within us. XO - Chan