Let's have a little cry.

6:05 pm Tuesday, December 31, 2019

I’m sitting in an airport, with an hour to go until my plane starts to board for France. I want to cry and smile and do a happy dance and curl up in a little ball all at the same time. Can I do that without them kicking me off the flight? It’s so hard for me to describe what exactly I’m feeling, particularly because I’m not even sure myself. I’m ready and nervous and scared and excited. I’ve been preparing for this for four years and yet it seems like I made the decision yesterday.

I’ve said good-bye to all the people I know. Gotten so many different wonderful responses: “I’m proud of you” seems to be the running theme. A lot of envy. A couple (both Farringtons that aren’t my brother) expressed doubt - “We’ll see if you go,” “I can’t believe you saved that much money - you’re terrible with money,” “You’re going to get so bored over there.” My mother, upon dropping her off at the airport at Thanksgiving, cried into my hair as I hugged her, telling me how much she was going to miss me. My mother never cries. And we’ve spent most of our relationship apart, partly due to her deployments, partly to general adult life and my desire to live near the ocean.

I’ve secured an adorable little flat on the fourth floor of a building on an island that looks at the back end of the destroyed Notre Dame. Movers came to my Jamaica Plain apartment on Friday to take just about everything. Got my visa in a record eight days after a panicked writing of a letter stating I was never a Spanish National and I was born on a Navy base. I’ve packed up seven months of my life into two suitcases (one of which was 6 kilos overweight), a back-pack, and a satchel from my favorite American bookstore that holds a digital camera I have no idea how to work and 1940’s vintage Japanese camera that my Lolo traveled the world with. I’ve changed my phone plan, gotten health insurance, cancelled my vitamins, got one last haircut, and spent a couple hours playing Uno this afternoon with my best friends. I am ready.

And I just lifted my head out of my hands and brushed away tears. I’m not sad, per se, but my body tends to feel things before my head recognizes what’s going on and I’m sure I’ll figure out why I’m crying in twenty minutes. It’s overwhelming. My life is changing. And it’s deliberately my own making. I am leaving behind security and comfort and income to read and write and eat and travel and sit for hours in museums. And the romantic in me feels like today, the end of the year, the end of the decade, is the perfect day to systematically throw my life into upheaval.

Last night saw my best friend Melissa and I going over all the things that have happened to us these last ten years. For me, the last ten years were full of growth. The last five were transformative. 2019 - while for so many was an epic shit show - was transcendent. I have fallen in love twice (maybe three times - the jury’s still out on the last one), thought I fell in love once, graduated college, moved to LA to pursue my dream and realized I am so much more genuine than I thought, discovered there are some types of fish I actually like and had the best breakfast I’ve ever had at Russ & Daughter's in NYC, I took up writing again and wrote my first short story, saw SO MANY GOOD MOVIES, discovered some new novels that I couldn’t finish and others I couldn’t put down, moved from the working poor to the middle class, my acting career finally started taking shape and shot my first film, I started going to therapy after feeling depressed and thinking about suicide, I got baptized then stopped going to a church I was a leader in, got certified as a yoga teacher, met one of my favorite families, ate too much, didn’t make out with anyone enough, started a self-care regimen, shot my shot and was rejected three times, found a man that was both intelligent and funny and managed to embarrass myself horribly, I distanced myself from my toxic father, ended friendships that were suffocating and gave zero return on investment, and most importantly, I learned to love myself. What a fucking ride the 2010’s have been.

Here’s what I think I’ve learned: Do the best for yourself so you can do your best for others. You have to be vulnerable to connect. Don’t be afraid of being the smartest person in the room and don’t be ashamed when you say something stupid. Tell the people you love that you love them as much as you can. Be present. Be absolutely you.

I tend to do a look-forward to the next year but I can’t even start to fathom anything other than incredibly delicious food, a lot of creativity, seeing some incredibly beautiful sights, growth in the discomfort of being in a foreign country without a support system close at hand, and finally living by myself.

If I don’t come back to the states with a fantastic ass from climbing all the metro stairs, I’m going to be so mad.

A bientôt et bonne année!