The Lucky Ones

   

     It's cloudy and crisp, the streets are a blur of black coats, near-white buildings and strings of blue lights. People kiss cheeks and duck out of cafes and kids are happily screaming in their school courtyards. Delivery trucks are unloading on the sidewalk. Parisians are dressed like it's colder than the five degrees Celsius that it is and rubbing their hands for warmth as they walk. Shoppers browse their way through high-end boutiques in this part of the sleepy seventh.

     It's Thanksgiving, but you'd never know it.

     Despite its American status, my school is open like any other day. I have class all day and papers to write. Instead of eating turkey and mashed potatoes all afternoon, I'm eating a sandwich and croissant. It's not weird to be skipping a traditional Thanksgiving, because don't forget: it doesn't exist here. It's just Thursday. It'd be much stranger to be away from home on Christmas since Paris has been in the holiday spirit for a month already and you can't avoid it (the Christmas lights here really are spectacular).

     Every year on Thanksgiving, my family and I sit down to our Thanksgiving meal--which is either enthusiastically home-cooked or ordered from a restaurant--and we start eating and talking around the table. I smile and everybody knows what I'm about to say: everyone go around and list what you're thankful for. Since I can't be at home, this is what I'd say this year:

I'm grateful, thankful, appreciative and glad to be living in my favorite city again, 
More and more everyday I'm realizing that it's always better to follow your heart than to do what you think people expect from you. Grad school isn't fun, but living abroad, meeting new people, staying out later than you should because you're too happy to just call it a night and feeling the accomplishment that you can make it not only on your own, but on your own on a whole different continent, in a different language and in a different culture is definitely fun. I've learned more by living in Paris than I ever have in a classroom. I'm thankful for all the help I've received along the way here because I know I'm one of a lucky few.

I'm thankful for the last seventeen years with my cat,
Here comes the cat shout-out. But honestly, most people don't get that many years with their favorite pet and I'll always be grateful that I was home in the summer with her when it was her time.

I'm thankful for airplanes,
I have four friends and family members coming to see me over the year, starting with my friend from high school, Ashley, next week. Plus, I get to go home for a month in mid-December. No matter how far away I am, I always think it's only a grossly overpriced ticket away. I'm so glad I'm able to spend the holidays at home, despite how much the cold is going to suck. I can't wait for bonfires, Minnesotan accents, real grocery stores and to party it up with everyone at home before another semester of doom (Okay, school's not that bad ).

and I'm thankful for you.
If you're reading this, I probably know you and therefore care about you. So thanks for existing. And reading.

Love,
Rachel