The Thick of It (Mexican version)

It's one thing to not get hired for the job you were hoping to get. It's quite another to be hired, sign your contract, go to work for three days... and then find out they can't hire you after all, through no fault of your own. This is the story of the past week of my life... yet another chapter in the tragic lives of the unemployed in this ludicrous economy.

Yes, I was offered a job in the now hated (by me) government agency charged with preventing and eradicating violence against women in Mexico (epic and almost laughably ambitious task, but a task I wanted to devote myself to nonetheless). I wanted to work there badly, so badly that I accepted below-average pay and no benefits to get in. I signed all the paperwork on the spot and they even gave me assignments before I officially started.

Last Thursday was my first day. As in every "first day" of my life, I got up early, allotted extra time to look sharp, and was there early... briefcase in hand and 1000-watt smile. I was busy as a bee for three days, getting used to the idea of working for the government with all its limitations... including no office, no computer, no desk even. I convinced myself that working out of a waiting room the size of my bathroom exchanging body odor with five other people with my laptop actually on my lap, burning my legs, was worth it because I was finally doing something I not only loved, but actually though was important and meaningful. I had never really had that before, or at least I was never able to get paid for it before. I felt that I was "on track"... on my way to earning and saving money to pay rent, buy a car, make a life, have a family. After two years of graduate school, I felt that I was successfully reintegrated into the "real world" … and it wasn't half bad.

This morning I walked into work for my third day, excited as ever but with a strange feeling that this might not be all it's cracked up to be. Is it because I am receiving no clear direction? Is it because the "Doctor" (an obnoxious woman with a Ph.D. in anthropology and a pseudo "I-experience-pangs-of-white-guilt" afro) was a bitch when I asked her for a document? Is it because they just informed me I will be working late on a pointless and bureaucratic task? I attributed the dark and ominous feeling to the "third-day blues", a.k.a. the day you realize that your dream job has the same problems as any other job: lazy coworkers, bad bosses, pointless tasks mixed in with the interesting ones. But no... this was something more. I felt so strange that I started plotting how I could escape early for lunch to go home for a bit and see my family and maybe feel more like myself. It soon became clear why I had a dark and ominous feeling. I guess I have learned to trust my gut.

This particular government agency is led by a woman of apparently great accomplishments but, IMHO, absolutely no leadership skills. During my interview with her, she didn't look me in the eye once... for the entire five minutes it lasted. She basically asked me if I was a lawyer (to which I firmly responded "yes", in spite of my before-mentioned ambiguity about the term) and she then curtly offered me the spot in all its gritty glory ("it's not much", "the pay isn't as good as you might expect from the government", "you would not be part of the government structure so you would not receive any benefits", "the work hours are quite unfriendly"). Well, it appears that those five minutes were all that this woman could spare for me, because she could not even offer me another five to fire/unhire me to my face.

Today around noon I got called in by this woman's personal assistant (a man, working as an assistant for a woman, for once), who quickly and unfetteredly announced that my hiring procedure could not be completed because they did not get approval from the head clerk. He said that both of my bosses were "delighted with my performance of the past few days", and they did not want to tell me earlier because they wanted to "plea my case" because there was still a slight possibility of getting approval. He said that the head of the agency had tried to negotiate it earlier but had gotten nowhere. Yeah. Right. Now what?

I was civil and thanked him for trying. I even told him to consider me if any opportunities opened up in the future. In truth, I wanted to scream and tell him to "take me to his leader". Why could the big boss lady not have told me herself? Why could they not have made sure they had approval to hire me before they made me believe I was hired and made me come to work for three days? Why could they not consider this before I rejected two perfectly good offers from two perfectly lovely NGOs? WHY?!!!

I left the little man's office (his personality is little but he's also quite tiny physically) in a rush and went downstairs where nobody could hear or see me. I called my usual support system (husband, father, mother... I would have called my sister but she's living in New York this year, damn it) and I cried my eyes out. I cried out of anger and frustration and a strange mix of entitlement and humiliation, but most of all, I cried out of sheer disappointment.

Disappointment is defined as "the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations to manifest". That is exactly right: I was so happy to have found the job I wanted... I told all my friends and grinned as I took in their congratulations. We made a commitment to rent a little town house on the expectation that I would soon have an income. I even gloated to my ex that I had found a government job before he had (in the wise words of Samantha: “it’s always a contest with an ex!”). Furthermore, I actually did the work requested with commitment and enthusiasm. I showed up early and got involved and gave it my all. I never expected it would not last. I now have to suffer the embarassment of telling my 83-year-old meddlesome grandmother that she was right all along: my education was pointless because I can't find a job after all. I now have to grovel to the perfectly lovely NGOs whose offers I rejected to see if they will take me back. We'll perhaps need to reconsider the house.

The dictionary also says that "disappointment" is "similar to regret" but that "it differs in that the individual feeling regret focuses primarily on the personal choices that contributed to a poor outcome". So, regret is basically different from disappointment in that you know that you contributed to the result... you feel that it is somehow your fault. In this sense, perhaps regret is worse... at least it is for me. This time, I am comforted by the idea that I did nothing wrong. I have no regrets. I did not deserve this and there is nothing I could have done better or differently to keep it from happening. Sometimes, shit really just happens, for whatever reason.

In the manner of all other members of the optimistic/romantic lineage, I tell myself that everything happens for a reason. Perhaps I'm just not cut out for the limitations of bureaucracy and the inevitable frustrations of working for the government of a “new” democracy figuring out its kinks. Perhaps I will get a better offer to work in a place that actually improves the lives of women in real and concrete ways, instead of sitting in crowded conference rooms talking about it and "drafting policy" that never trickles down. Perhaps the dark and ominous feeling was my soul's way of telling me to get out of there, fast.

I must confess that, along with the tsunami of disappointment, I felt tiny waves of relief when I heard the news. Maybe I just didn’t want to deal with the stress of working in a new environment and having to adjust and prove myself. Perhaps I was just happy that I didn't have to do the awful budget assignment and I could just go home for lunch and kiss my husband and hug my parents. But maybe, just maybe, something bigger was telling me that this one just wasn't for me. Why else would something as strange as being "unhired" out of the blue and for no apparent reason happen in the middle of my third day at work? I choose to believe that there is something better in store for me and that this apparently "random" occurrence in my life has some sort of greater purpose. I hope to find a new job soon and get back on the elusive "track", but in the meantime, I have a few more days to sleep in, get drunk, enjoy my family and take in the pleasures of my new (and old) hometown.

Tourbillon

There is a hurricaine sweeping over the Pacific with my name on it. For real. It is one of those rare ironies that hide precious meaning. It tells me that perhaps it is time to look at my life and ponder why it has become such chaos lately. Perhaps it's no coincidence that "my" hurricaine comes by just when I feel like I am being swept away and pulled at from every different direction. I haven't written for two months now. The reason is that I haven't had a chance to be by myself in those entire two months. It should come as no surprise then that I haven't had a chance to listen to myself or really take care of my soul for a little while.

After two years of living abroad, I have now settled in my old home town again. I use the term "settled" loosely as I am living in my husband's old room at my father-in-law's huge dark house. The bedroom is all him (before me): walls covered with books and law treatises, Beethoveen's plaster head hanging above the bed, shaving accessories, and all sorts of cute nerd paraphernalia. My suitcases are still packed. I love being pampered by the housekeepers and being fed fresh tropical fruit at whim, but I'm beginning to miss a space to call my own. The job search is going slow but steady (as steady as can be in this lousy economy) and we will move to our own (hopefully lovely) flat once either of us gets the first paycheck.

The most daunting challenge has been dealing with the crazy winds of family. It seems like every day there is a new conflict or issue that is affecting the people I love. I'm not even involved in most of these thunderstorms, but I get angry or sad whenever I find out that someone in my family is hurting. I am finding it incredibly difficult to detach myself from the whirlwind happening around me. My father-in-law has begun dating again, and although it's been a year since my mother-in-law passed, I still feel strange and weirdly territorial about him. My grandfather continues to behave like a backward Roman patriarch and humiliating my father at every opportunity. My grandmother threatens to beat unwelcome members of the family with her wooden cane. My mother gets herself into more trouble than she can handle. My husband thinks I'm losing my marbles and thereby begins to lose his. Am I going crazy here?

Of course it was easy to be stable and positive when we were living in our quaint English university town. My biggest stress trigger was school work and I was in a system with no strict deadlines or cutthroat competition. My toughest decision was what new recipe to try out from Gourmet Magazine. I hate to think of it in terms of coming back to the "real world", but that's what it feels like right about now.

As the hurricaine of my life unravels, I find myself wondering how I got here. Sure, the answer seems quite obvious: I have to take care of myself and give myself time away from the madness. I want to work on writing my article and my book project, exercise, spend more time with my husband (just us), be more enthousiastic about the job hunt, and generally enjoy life more. My mother-in-law always said that you can't control what happens around you (a friggin' hurracaine named after me... really?), but you can decide how to face things. I can't control the fact that I don't have job or a penny to my name, or that I temporarily have no closet and no kitchen to play in. I can't control my mother's meddling or my father-in-law's love life. I can, however, decide to stop wobbling around and stand still for a moment. I can try to find my center again and not be pulled into the twister of other people's lives. Perhaps when this hurricaine passes (you know, the actual hurricaine named after me), I will find that the hurricaine of my life has also passed. It has left me standing... a bit shaken up, but enjoying the calm after the storm with both feet firmly on the ground.

On Home, or Something Like It

By some strange coincidence, yesterday I saw Dorothy repeat “there’s no place like home”, while clicking the heels of her ruby slippers on a gigantic plasma screen. I have watched this scene a million times and yet it never before felt so hollow. As irony would have it, I have never felt less at home, and worse -perhaps for the first time ever- I have no idea where home is.

My parents’ house in Mexico City always harbored my idea of home… you know, the place that comforts you after a long day at work, or the place you are relieved to take shelter in after a trip. I arrived here last week, after a couple of years of living and traveling abroad, to discover that the house that I grew up in was no longer my home. I still have a room here but it is closer to a storage space than to the treasured spot where I used to read, sing, listen to loud music, and have sleepovers in. I barely recognize my old bed in a room buried in boxes. What about the homes that followed? My tiny New York studio overlooking the Hudson: gone. Passed on to the next student wanting to experience Manhattan on a budget. Our lovely one-bedroom in one of those great English houses in North Oxford: gone. The thought of another tenant occupying it after merely a week since we left it breaks my heart.

Well -I tell myself in an attempt to find solace- perhaps none of these places are my home anymore, but that’s because I’m building a new one. As attractive as this proposition sounds, and as much as I hope it will be a reality over the next few months, as of now, I have to admit that I have no home. If home is a place to call my own, then I am totally and utterly homeless.

“Home” is not only a place though… it’s also a feeling. It’s that warm fuzzy-wuzzy sensation of belonging. To a country, to a city, to a group, to a family. Sadly, I am also struggling to find this feeling since we left Oxford. I feel like a stranger in my own home town, suffering allergies from the pollution and cursing the traffic, the current electoral drama, and the general chaos that is the Great Tenochtitlan. I even suffer from a mean and unprecedented case of Montezuma’s revenge… I, who used to pride myself on eating in the shadiest and most unsanitary spots of the city to enjoy its delicious treats. Welcome to the jungle. That is the phrase that constantly comes to mind. The tired, messy, hot and rainy urban jungle that is Mexico City in late June.

The thought of seeing my family offered consolation as the bus left Oxford for Heathrow Airport a week ago. I love each member of my family fiercely and being far away from them was difficult. And yet, I somehow feel like the prodigal daughter that cannot quite adjust and cannot quite come home. As much as I love seeing them, especially my little sister in all her toothless joy, I feel exhausted and disappointed at the inevitable conflict and dysfunction that arises after a couple of days.

Perhaps my marriage would provide this cozy feeling, as it always has in the past, if I wasn’t childishly shifting some of the blame for my discomfort on my husband. Sometimes I catch myself reacting like a toddler or a puppy, faulting the nearest person when feeling pain and hitting or biting back. I scream as I realize that family drama has been automatically doubled by marriage and I now have to deal with twice the inane visits, annoying relatives, and endless family events. Perhaps I am selfish for having moments when I wish I was Samantha from SATC, living in New York with no attachments and no hang-ups. But then again, I’m sure every married woman has these moments. I love my husband and these complaints are petty compared to the bundle of happiness that is A.

The optimistic fortune-teller inside my head tells me that I will find a great apartment in one of the funky and centric neighborhoods of the city. That my eyes and respiratory system will adjust to the altitude and pollution and I will be able to sleep, exercise and live healthfully again. That I will grow accustomed to the fast pace and the traffic and learn to relax (before I grind my teeth down to my gums). That my husband and I will be blissful again, living in our own space and rationing family time (and thus family drama). That we will find a cool job that we genuinely enjoy. That I will regroup with my lovely friends and find my place here again.

That I will click my heels three times and feel at home.

All About My Mother

Is there a creature in this world more simultaneously worthy of our love and hate than our mother? My mother is at once the object of my utmost adoration and admiration, and the most problematic relationship in my life. I love her because of who she is, but also because she is an echo and reminder of all good the things I am and want to be. At the same time, I hate her because she is a mirror of all the bad things I am and am afraid to be.

My mother is smart, talented, beautiful, strong. She was always the prettiest and most graceful one. She was always top of her class. She is surrounded by people that love her and would never fail her. She is brave. She is loyal. She makes no apologies, for better or for worse. She loves intensely and is loved intensely in return.

My mother thinks life is a raspberry soufflé only she knows the recipe to. The recipe is to be beautiful, rich, thin, smart, and marry well. Of course, she is much deeper than this last statement suggests, but if you asked her what she wanted in life for her daughters, her honest answer would probably be just that. Not happiness or inner peace or self-fulfillment. Just that. There is no possibility that the recipe might just be different for different people, or that one might be allowed to burn a soufflé or two before getting one just right. Mother knows best. She is perfect, but perfection is inevitably simulated, and therefore becomes repulsive.

My mother is not the type to tell you things will be okay after you’ve made a mistake. She’s the type to rub your face in it hoping that the lesson will stick. She wants to be sure you’ll never make that mistake again. So why do I still come to her every time I mess up? Because she is my compass, even if she’s tough as nails. Because I know she means well, even if it hurts.

I hate myself the most when I remind myself of my mother. When I catch myself being overcritical, controlling or self-involved, I see her in me and I am terrified. There are worst things to be in this life than my mother, I know, but she is the most powerful force I have seen up close.

I tell myself that I will be a better mother. I tell myself that I will be more flexible, I will not have such ridiculously rigid expectations, I will encourage my children to develop their own true sense of self. But even as I think that, I acknowledge that my mother did a damn good job. I always felt loved and I always knew I had a home. My best memories are with my family, with my mom as our charming commander-in-chief. She gives me a kind of comfort that only she can give.

And after all, I became everything I am because of her as much as it was in spite of her. I did make my own mistakes and choices in spite of her. I like to think that I became my own person, a traveler and warrior, because of her too. In the end, I love her deeply and that love trumps everything else. I experience a huge sense of pride whenever I see myself through her eyes.

Maybe we are destined to imprint on our child some kind of expectation of who they should be, even if we have the best intentions. That means that, as much as I am aware of the fact that I want to avoid this (probably much more than my mother was when she had me at twenty-three), I’ll end up telling my child that he or she should be a certain way. Even when all I want is for my child to be happy, I might end up sending some message about where the road to happiness starts. Maybe it is unavoidable that my children will hate me like I hate my mother. I only hope and pray that they love me as fiercely as I love her too.

On Sex and Violence

"Do you have any sisters?" Jenny asks, interrupting Mark's apology. "Yes, I have two younger sisters", he answers. "Ok- says Jenny- I want you to ask them a question... and the most important thing is that you really listen to their answer. I want you to ask your sisters about the very first time that they were intruded upon by some man, or a boy." "What makes you think that my sisters have been intruded upon?" "Because there isn't a single girl or woman in this world that hasn't been intruded upon. And sometimes it's relatively benign, and sometimes it's so fucking painful. But you... have no idea what this feels like."


When we look at statistics on rape, sexual harassment, and other types of sexual and gender-based violence, it's clear that women are disproportionately the victims of these crimes. If so many women in every single country and context have suffered, or continue to suffer, sexual violence, then it's also clear that we are at risk. A woman I know was raped in the shower when a group of men broke into her home. Another woman I read about was raped and tortured when leaving the parking lot at her office building. That could be anyone, we think. That could be me.

Rape seems like an extreme illustration of the phenomenon, although the word 'extreme' appears inappropriate to describe a crime so common. But still, there are the lesser, more paltry examples of sexual violence that we have become so used to that they barely seem like violence at all: a boyfriend pressuring us into having sex, a colleague or client in a business meeting ogling our breasts instead of listening to what we are saying, walking the streets of a city (some cities more than others) and receiving a disgusting whistle, moan or comment on how fine and how fuckable we are. We don't need to have been raped to understand how disarming it feels to be violated.

Equipped by this new consciousness, I search the dusty drawers of my memory (you know, the ones that keep the souvenirs you'd rather forget about) and I, like any other woman, can find many occurrences of this particular feeling. When I was 10, a man put his hand up my little skirt with little apples on it as I looked at postcards at the market. When I was 15, a man relentlessly tried to get into my pants although I was unresponsive and quasi-catatonic with grief. When I was 18, a stranger masturbated in front of me. When I was 19, my boyfriend made me feel dirty and shameful because I was not a virgin the first time we had sex. When I was 23, I let a guy pressure me into having sex (for the last time). It seems like a lot, although I'm certain it is quite average and I'm not particularly ‘unlucky’ … and this is not counting the guys who grabbed my ass while riding public transportation, or the looks I got when I wore a skirt to certain areas of town. I'm not overly scarred or traumatized by these events, but I still believe they are appalling and unacceptable.

The ingredients that go into this feeling are shame, vulnerability, and fear. We are afraid because this happened to us and it could happen to us again. We are afraid that it could happen to our sisters, our friends, our daughters. And we are right to be afraid. The fear is not only justified on account of the terrifying data and anecdotes, but precisely because it is familiar. It is this fear that leads us to be careful and avoid certain situations where the violence is more likely to happen, even if there are no guarantees. I'm all for taking care of ourselves and our bodies, and I support any woman who will try to protect herself. The fear is useful if it works as an incentive for us to be stronger.

However, this same fear is suspect when used as an instrument of control. Fear can be used to control our sexuality and limit our pleasure, as it has been used since the beginning of time. The message has always been the same: sex is dangerous. Don't have sex or you'll get hurt. As much as I recognize that sexual violence is heinous and painful, I also refuse to perpetuate the idea that sex in itself is dangerous.

Don't have sex or you'll get pregnant and have a botched abortion and die. Don't have sex or everyone will think you're a whore. Don't have sex or he'll break your heart. In fact, don't even kiss him too intently or he'll get the wrong idea and then he won't be able to stop himself (it's only natural). Actually, don't even wear certain clothes or walk a certain way or any man could get the wrong idea. With this kind of warped discourse, it's a wonder we can find pleasure in sex, especially heterosexual sex, at all. Is it possible that we are so paralyzed by fear and shame that we have to re-learn to enjoy sex?

So what's the solution? We don't want to say that the world is a safe, soft, lovely place where women can exercise their sexuality freely without having to worry about rape, abuse, or at the very least, ulterior motives. A certain degree of caution is necessary to navigate these tricky waters. But we also don't want to say that sex is the big bad wolf. We want to enjoy and relish sex... to go wild, really, if we want.

For us to be vigilant about the threat of sexual violence, without being limited in our experience of sex, I think we need to be clear about what we want and like, as well as what we don’t want and don’t like. Maybe if we weren’t so afraid of getting hurt, we could ask ourselves if we really want a particular sexual experience and who we want to share that experience with. If we don’t want it, then nobody should force us into it, whether it is a stranger or a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband. But if we are sure we want it, then we should enjoy it without a hint of dread.

Instead of building a culture of fear about our sexuality, we should be encouraging each other to be thoughtful, assertive, and follow through on our choices about sex (as with everything else). It is most likely that we’ll still be eyeballed and groped, but at least we’ll have the certainty that sex is great, as long as it's on our terms.

Paris, je t'aime

Returning to a familiar place, which through the passing of time has become less familiar, always results in the strangest mix of emotions. Returning to Paris was like coming back to the house you grew up in. You realize it is different, yet it is also the same. Everything seems smaller than you thought it was. You realize it no longer belongs to you, but in a sense, it always will.

I first truly experienced Paris when I was fifteen. I wanted to speak French, read French, eat French, be French so badly that I convinced my parents to send me to boarding school in France for a year. It was the worst and the best year of my life.

My father, the self-proclaimed King of Paris, took me there at the beginning of the school year. I felt excited and nervous as we discovered the machinery of the city, treading the sidewalks of Paris until our shoes were in rags. He dropped me off at boarding school a few days later and that's when the panic began. I was homesick, lonely, anguished... hysterical really. I didn't speak the language and I didn't know anybody. I was depressed and could not sleep. All I wanted was to come home.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that my first six months in France were a haze of despair. I thought I was going mad: I had visions of killing myself, of taking my clothes off in the middle of the street, of dying without anybody even knowing about it. At the same time, I was ashamed of feeling so unstable and wanted desperately to feel normal, comfortable, at least human again. At my lowest point, I let some guy from school that I didn't even know well, or like, take me to his house. I was so desperate for a human connection that I laid in his bed, lifeless, as I let him kiss me and touch me until he finally grew weary and gave up. I spent many days in Paris, like a ghost, asking the city to soothe me in some way.

I came home for Christmas and begged my parents not to make me go back to France. Of course, they reminded me that I had to finish what I had started and promptly put me on the plane back. The following six months were another story altogether. I learned the language, I made an effort to make friends, and, best of all, I conquered Paris. I remember the rush of finally understanding my surroundings. I was exhilarated when waiters and shopkeepers, and then eventually my new friends and professors, didn't notice my accent. Paris blossomed before me and offered all the joy it had been withholding. I felt I was tasting the bread, the wine, the cheese, the pastries, for the very first time. I travelled, I fell in love again, I drank good wines and strong coffee, I smoked weed for the first time. I read the works of Hugo and Balzac and Maupassant and De Beauvoir and Sartre, in French, like I had always dreamed of. Paris became a wonderful tempest of sunlight, culture and love. And, boy, was I thankful. Before I left, I cried and silently thanked Paris for all it had given me, good and bad. I got on the plane back home and I knew nothing would ever be the same.

The first time I returned to Paris after my year there was again in the company of the King of Paris, in September 2001. We were only there for a few days, but I was drunk with excitement. I let the vapors of the Seine fill my lungs and I felt like I was home again. Dad and I were sitting at a cafe in Montmartre, enjoying the afternoon, when the chef, who was listening to the radio inside, came out screaming to tell us that there had been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The attack on the Twin Towers has become one of those "where were you when it happened?"moments for everybody, and of course, I happened to be in Paris. My Paris, as intense as always.

After nearly eight years, I returned to Paris again last week, bringing my eternal sidekick (and husband) A. It was A's first visit to Paris, so I felt overwhelming pressure to show him everything, and to sow a seed of love for Paris that we could share. I was overzealous in my plans, so we walked endlessly under the bright sunlight, in my attempt to show him the true, the powerful, the beautiful Paris. Of course, showing a person in four days what one discovered and savored in years is a failed enterprise from the start. I am sure A loved Paris for its beauty and grandeur, yet I was inevitably frustrated in my desire to show him the little corners known only to true Parisians... the students, the intellectuals, the lovers of life. We ate like there was no tomorrow and literally destroyed our feet covering large areas of the city and taking in all the sites, but I remained inevitably unsatisfied.

I was reminded of the wonderful times I had there but I also somehow felt a little old. It was as though the crooked workings of my tortured teenage soul had given the city a certain boldness I could no longer fully experience. Like the ups and downs of my sensory roller-coaster had become less sharp with age. Paris was still a wonder, yet it was a bit more blurry than I remembered. There were more tourists, more people, less color.

At times, I felt sad. I felt like I was a little girl of fifteen again, arriving from boarding school to spend the weekend in Paris, in my uniform and duffel bag, devastatingly vulnerable and alone. I even went to the building where I used to stay during those first few weekends, and I felt scared and fragile all over again. It's good to be reminded that, as much as we grow, we are not immune from pain... from life. Strangely enough, there were times where I no longer felt like a native. My French flowed ever-so-slightly slower from my tired tongue and I no longer remembered the name of every street, every monument and every park. I also really, really missed my Dad... the one-and-only, the original King of Paris, who had introduced me to all the wonder in the first place.

And yet, there were moments of pure magic… the kind of magic that only exists in Paris. Exploring the streets and bridges at night, with the person who has become my family, had a new charm of its own. I came to Paris as a grown-up for the first time, and therefore had to get to know Paris again, as a grown-up. Paris had changed, and so had I, so it took us a couple of days to feel comfortable with each other again. Paris is no longer the extreme whirlwind of emotion that I knew, but it remains a refuge, a bastion of inspiration, a dwelling of my heart. It is an old and much-loved family member that challenges me in new and ever-changing ways. J’aime Paris. Et Paris, m’aime aussi.

Who I'm Not

Who am I? This much you know by now: I am Ava and I am in my late twenties. I am twenty-seven, to be precise, an age in which we are meant to know where we are going in life. Our teens are the hormone-induced chaos of separating our beings from those of our parents. Our early twenties are a sort of draft of what is to come, when we are still allowed to make a few mistakes and even change our paths entirely. Our late twenties, however, are an age in which we are meant to have a few things figured out. But really, no one's really got it figured out just yet. Even as I try to decipher who I am, I find myself going more through a process of weeding out who I'm not.

I am not a "lawyer", although technically I am, meaning that I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat and shivering, after dreaming of being back at work at a conventional law firm. I dream that it is my first day back at the glass offices of Monster Law Firm and I am at a meeting with Supreme Bitch #1, listening to her as she icily gives me the plethora of rules about what to wear, write, talk about, etc. I'm taking notes in a delightful new notepad I got at MoMa with an Edward Hopper reproduction, when suddenly SB#1 takes notice and starts lecturing me on how I must use a plain white or yellow notepad because anything else would be extravagant. I suddenly feel the unbearable weight of my ill-advised decision to return to this rigid, fascist world, and I stand up, curtly apologize to SB#1 for taking up her precious time, and run out... as fast as I can. As I walk into the bright sunlight, I open my arms as if to hug the gleaming waves that surround me, and I experience the purest sense of joy and relief. And I wake up.

Being in my late twenties has come to mean that I'm also no longer a tortured soul. Yes, my name is Ava and I was a tortured soul through most of my teens and late twenties. As other tortured souls may acknowledge, those of our kind tend to be text-book overreactors who are so starved for meaning that they will agonize and linger and create drama over many a simple situation. This means that I dated the wrong guy, and then the wronger guy, and then the wrongest guy... and then stayed with him for a five-year tug-of-war. Oh, and then I started all over again with another wrong guy. This means that I literally bored my dad to sleep during a conversation about what I should be doing with my life... at fifteen. This means that I travelled the world, took on lovers, slept with strangers, chased after boys who didn't care about me, identified with star-crossed literary heroines... you name it. I loved bold gestures, surprise endings, torrid romances. Lately, however, I've been feeling quite calm and content. It's a nice change.

I was born in a city of earthquakes and fear somewhere in Latin America. When I think about my city and my adult life there, all I get are blurry speedy visions of traffic, noise, and smog. Sometimes I can go further back in time and remember the sunny afternoons of eating lime sorbets and playing with my sister as a child, or going to the zoo where the crowded (and almost inhumane) spaces where the animals were kept in made it much easier to look at them up close. I remember the jacaranda trees in my grandmother's back yard and how much I loved sleeping over at her house on Fridays so my parents could have "date night". I also joyfully remember playing hooky in high school to take the subway downtown, check out the museums, and eat fried food from street carts. When I was a tortured soul, I rejected my relatively privileged upbringing and went to the massive free concerts at the center square, to shout and laugh and drink, and feel young and rebellious and alive. I almost begin to feel nostalgic, but then I get real. I remember poverty, inequality, crime rates, pollution, corruption. My city is like a dear old lover who broke my heart.

I am also not scared anymore. I spent most of my life, as any bonafide tortured soul, being scared of not being successful, or accepted, or happy, or extraordinary. The fear of being ordinary may have been the worst. Even when things are good, a true tortured soul is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The contentment I lately experience has turned me into a believer, an optimist, a shiny-happy person, if you will. I know there might be hardship or heartbreak in my future, but for now I trust that things will be more or less okay. I know this is a strange time to be saying so, being that the world is facing the worst economic tsunami in history, war, famine, etc., but I finally feel like things are going to turn out fine.

My husband A plays a role in that, I must say. It's a tired cliche but I always meant to achieve this contentment on my own, you know? As a hard-core feminist, I never bought into the whole Jerry McGuire "you complete me" bull, where another person is supposed to sweep in and finally make us happy. I know we are supposed to make ourselves happy and whole. I think I was in the process of getting there when I started dating A. Things were easy, breezy, straightforward and healthy from the beginning, which was definitely new for me and my old tortured soul. A's goofy, smart, tender ways warmed my heart from the very start. I admit that feeling so deeply loved has contributed to my more tranquil and balanced stance on life.

I look out the window and see the late-afternoon sun embracing the new leaves on the trees. It's mid-April in England and for the first time, I genuinely love my life. I'm no gloater and I shall spare no details on the disasters of my past, present, and future, but now I will take in this lustrous hour and enjoy the moment, for once.