Paris Monthly
2020
September
I am living in Paris. I hop on the metro ride a few stops and I am literally standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. On one of our first weekend outings I tagged along with the other foreigners on the team (girls from Belgium, Holland, Spain, and Lithuania) and met them for a drink and a snack downtown. They said we were just wandering the city and I was like “cool, just a relaxing walk around Paris, getting the lay of the land” and then the next thing I knew we were at the Louvre. That was surreal. The giant glass pyramids outside in the courtyard of the museum was *crickets*. I didn’t even have words. The building was beautiful. We weren’t able to go inside but that was for future plans. A teammate of mine mentioned that if you were to spend only one second at every item in every exhibit it would take you three months to see the entire museum. That’s insane! A brisk walk away from the museum and you’re in the Jardin de Tuileries. Absolutely unbelievable. The catch phrase of my next 8 months. At the edge of the garden you can see the Arc de Triumph a ways away. We kept walking and there was the Eiffel Tower also off in the distance. Never ending sites to see. It didn’t even bother me to be drenched in sweat from the humidity all I could think about was how absolutely unbelievable it all was.
October
9 hours assembling a bed from IKEA with scissors instead of a screw driver. Until I decided to be a rebel and go out after curfew and run to my teammates apartment a couple blocks away to steal her tools which was an absolute GAME CHANGER! No longer sleeping on a futon! 17 fist pumps!!!
November
Being American and not being in America during an election is kind of surreal. It’s interesting to get opinions about my opinion on who I would vote for from people who do not live in America. EVERYTHING on social media was about the election. I want to get rid of social media every other day but being so far from home social media makes it easy to stay in touch so I keep it for that but mentally that was not a great time to be on it. I spent a lot of time on google while they were counting the votes for like 15 days or whatever it was. The election, plus being in lockdown in France, plus being told to lose weight based on a number on a scale and nothing else made November a challenging month. But then we had thanksgiving as a team and all was better. Mostly…
December
Taylor Swift dropped another album.
Pretty certain I’m gonna quit playing volleyball after this season. Contemplating other careers.
2021
January
Can I just tell you, one of the most surreal experiences is getting my self around Paris by myself. That might sound silly, especially because Google maps does all the real work, but here I am in a foreign country getting on a bus or a train or a metro to meet up with friends or see sites or just get out of my apartment and it’s like I actually live here or something. Ya know? I’m on a bus like a local acting like I know where I’m going when in reality I’m just praying the stop I want comes up at some point. Stress and panic until my phone tells me I’m where I’m trying to go. And then I’m relieved and proud of myself. “See it’s not that hard. You can totally do this” haha
I’m in no way a local, but for a few seconds on the bus or metro I feel like that when in reality I’m thousands of miles away from where that statement is actually true.
February
One of my teammates who has been playing professionally for awhile says that February is always the hardest month.
She’s not wrong.
A few days ago, combining lots of things - covid, volleyball, injuries, Aunt Flo, personal pet peeves, you name it - I was just beyond angry. One of those days where I just had to keep my mouth shut or I was going to snap at someone who didn’t deserve it. I’m a quick to anger kind of person but I’m usually pretty good at controlling my emotions and compartmentalizing and not taking things out on people who don’t deserve it but every once in a while there’s a day or two that everything piles up and there is just no control and I’m just angry. And then I want to keep being angry. Even though in the back of my head I know it’s not doing me any good. Those are the worst days.
And usually after that day or later that day after I’ve stewed in my own anger someone will say something so simple, so sarcastic, so stupid as a joke to make me laugh and I do. And I can just feel the tension roll off my back and disappear and I feel a million times lighter. I am so grateful for those people. People who just get it. You mean the world to me.
March
I know I love my family. Missing them is one of the biggest reasons playing volleyball over seas for 8-9 months at a time is really really hard. But there is something about watching a family member fall apart in tears over FaceTime to you and being thousands of miles away unable to do a damn thing about it that quite literally shatters your heart into pieces.
April
Five of the first days of April were spent in quarantine because we had a positive test on our team. In those 5 small days we missed two matches. Coming out of quarantine we have two days to get back into a rhythm and then we will potentially play 8 matches in 15 days or 6 matches in 12 days. Either way that’s one hell of a way to end a season.
It’s actually so crazy, I’m going home in less than 20 days! And I am so freaking excited to see Blink and my family and my friends, and eat Cafe Rio, and Canes, and Ranch, and REESES! But at the same time I am going to miss seeing these girls everyday! We have had some great times here in these last 8 months. We laugh so hard together and have become really great friends. Friends for life for sure! They made this covid pro life experience so much better and I am so beyond thankful!
Update for April (from the plane ride home):
We ended up playing only four of the six matches because the last two got cancelled due to, you guessed it, COVID! So the last game we played we had no idea it was actually our last! Such a bummer. It’s definitely hard to put into words an entire 8 months of life like this, but I think the photos in The Travel Chapter help a lot! Thanks to those of you who followed along and watched some matches! Means a lot!
Stay tuned for Year 2!
