New Arrival

"Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now..."

~ "Airplanes" by B.o.B. and the chick from Paramore

Ok, so here's how my plane flight when down:

There was a billion college students about to head out to study abroad on the plane. Like a billion. The chances of me sitting next to one were inevitable. Like, I was going to be set cuz I could make friends with some fun chick or some hot dude and enjoy my nine hour flight.

But... this is my ridiculous life and of course I would get the seat next to the four month old. His name was Van, and while one of the most adorable babes I have ever seen... dude, that kid can scream. And chose to do so for a pretty good portion of the flight.

I talked to his mom for a bit and explained to her why I was traveling to France, and of course asked her story. Which was interesting. She had had Van through artificial insemination and was taking him to meet his birth father in France. She didn't have a ring on her finger and was traveling alone (the older british man sitting on the other side of her was definitely NOT related).

So this interesting story (mixed with my re-reading of the Sex and the City novel during the plane flight instead of doing my pre-France assignment), got me thinking: In my head, this unmarried, single woman who was probably in her 30s, had decided to cut the man out of the picture and have a child on her own. Her biological clock went off and instead of hitting the snooze button, she decided wake up and face this morning head on.

When do we take our lives into our own hands? When do we decide that its time to lead the lives we want to lead regardless of what stipulations the world around have forced upon us?

I guess that's going to be my mantra or sorts for this France trip. Instead of just being scared of not fitting in or not enjoying myself, I'm just going to take this trip into my own hands and enjoy as much as I want it to be. Straight up.

A new world...

“A new world calls across the ocean, a new world calls across the sky, a new world whispers in the shadows… Time to fly.”

~ “Opening: The New World” from Songs for a New World

Location: airport

I am so disgustingly nervous its ridiculous. I feel like a small town boy about to step into a huge, electric, large, strange world. But… I’m not a small town boy. I grew up in the Woodlands, I live in St. Louis, I’ve been to Europe twice before and have traveled all through Central America…

I keep singing to myself that little verse in Annie… the one where the Star-to-Be appears on stage during “N.Y.C.” and singing about how she just got there this morning. I don’t know if it’s the most accurate musical comparison but I think the intention/fear in both situations are similar. Everyone in this airport has someone with them. They are in groups traveling together or if they are alone, they are much, much older than me and look like they are well versed in the travel world.

I have two major fears for this trip:

1) I’m going to have a terrible time and be miserable the whole while. In the car on the drive, Jessica and I were joking about how when I get off the plane in Paris I should start singing Beauty and the Beast. I mean, they’re both set in France, right? I would walk off the plane and in a great musical opener I would start singing the “Bonjour! Bonjour!” part of the “Belle.” While Jessica and I giggled about that, my mother made a comment about how I am going to have a great time no matter what because I’ll be around theatre people who would understand the constant lust to burst into showstoppers, etc… To which Jessica and I both responded… I’m not going to be with theatre people, I’m going to be with dancers, and they are a completely different breed. And in all honesty, I haven’t spent an enormous amount of time with strictly dancers… It’s something completely new, something completely scary. Will they understand my ridiculous theatre references? Hopefully they’ll get my constant need to wax poetic when its comes to art and movement and theatre… But what if they don’t? What if they don’t get me at all? And honestly, I’m not really a dancer. I can dance and have danced before. I choreography, but in terms of technical training I am not a dancer. I am a dancer in the sense that I believe in movement and the body to express and create. I believe in using the body to tell a story. I hope that counts…

2) I’m going to the absolute time of my life and when I get back to the real world, the not creative artsy French world… I’m going to regret every coming back and feel even more restless and stuck than I have ever felt before. This is actually the fear that I’m leaning towards.

I just don’t want to be any more bored with life than I already am. And there’s a major possibility that after living in France for over a month, coming home to little old Texas or St. Louis is going to just… suck. More so going back to St. Louis. I will always love going back to Texas and The Woodlands, because that’s where my family and the people I grew up with are going to be. And being with them could never be boring. Now, St. Louis… We’ll see.

I keep playing “Opening: The New World” from Songs for a New World on repeat as I type this. I can really relate to it. Yes, France is not literally a new world for me to be in, but this feeling of being a young adult, being 21 years old and going off into the world for the first by myself into a country where no one speaks my language to be with people I don’t know and do something that I’m not even sure if I’m really any good at…

I haven’t been this nervous since my first day of college.

There’s a group of kids my age sitting two rows behind me at the gate. They seem like they’re having fun. I tried to sit close to them so I could eavesdrop slash not look like a fish out of water all by myself (I feel like people can see how insecure and nervous I am right now, and I feel like by camouflaging myself into a group of other 20 somethings that it would mask my ferocious, blinding insecurity), but alas apparently I took one of their friends seat and was banished to two rows away from them. Piss.

The woman sitting next to me now is speaking Spanish. I can’t even eavesdrop on her. I’m in a gate lobby full of people and my people watching/eavesdropping is extremely unsuccessful.

I just wish I had a friend here with me right now…. It would make this journey to this new world a little less frightening…

I’ve changed songs from “Opening: The New World” to Robyn’s new single, “Dancing On My Own”… while not quite a literal representation of how I am feeling right now… (I’m not staring at the love of my life making out with someone else on the dancefloor… or am I?) The sentiment is there. I’m dancing on my own right now.

I’m boarding. Wish me luck.