Going Back to Paris, in Another Space and Time

Living vibrantly by best aligning our life situation with our core values

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you feel like your favorite version of yourself? 

So deeply alive? 

I’ve been so fortunate about a dozen times. One time, in Paris.

Fresh baguettes in sunny Jardin du Palais-Royal, weaving through Montmartre overlooking brush strokes of color, sunset-gazing from the stairs of Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, gooey fondue, bottles of wine, dancing on tables, devouring banana Nutella crepes past midnight, and lying like a starfish directly underneath the Eiffel Tower past 4 a.m.

Call me naive, but I didn’t know it sparkled before that night. 

I felt immensely connected to my friends, to the bright stars, to myself. So completely full of life, that I couldn’t absorb one more drop. 

From the actual night, back when you used cameras and weird things happened

I’ve never wanted to return to Paris. No second experience can live up to the golden-framed memories of these forty-eight hours of my past. For almost twenty years, despite voyaging to hundreds of cities, I’ve intentionally avoided returning to Paris.

I never delved into what made my time in Paris so special. Until recently. 

Twelve years ago, I had a similarly vibrant twenty-four hours with a guy in New York City. We caught up about a month ago. How wonderfully strange it is to reconnect after so many years, especially when the last time we spent time together was one of the best days of my life.

But after revisiting this ‘Paris', I found the Eiffel Tower had stopped sparkling. 

What made everything so magical back then?

Upon reflection, the week prior to Paris, I had been dumped. On Valentine’s Day, my junior year of college.

In our short time as a couple, I had contorted myself in an attempt to be the woman he wanted. After bending, I’d sketched our possible future together, thinking I could maybe be content.

Our relationship wasn’t right, though, and he was brave enough to acknowledge it first. (Despite, come on, Valentine’s Day).

The sudden break up crumpled the sketch I had drawn. Instead, I stared down at a fresh sheet of paper. 

What might I draw now?

As I near forty, I am fascinated that I am still learning basics about myself. For instance, only in the last year have I realized how important freedom is to me. 

Freedom of expression, freedom of wandering, freedom of connection, and above all, freedom to be myself. 

In Paris, I had newly re-established freedom from an ill-fitting relationship. In New York City, I was on the eve of quitting my job and traveling indefinitely. 

My state of mind made these days incredibly alive. My life design aligned perfectly with my core value of freedom.

I chose to have children though, and small children are essentially the opposite of freedom to me. 

So what do I do?

I’ve always said I wished I could live parallel lives. One where I have a family, with kids, and income stability (my current reality) and one where I wander indefinitely across the globe while writing and connecting with others. 

I haven’t figured out the secret to living parallel lives (yet), so instead, I am trying my best to strike balance within my life’s constraints. I can’t be completely free without abandoning my family, and that’s not what I want. However, I do want a lifestyle that mirrors my deepest convictions as much as possible.

I believe we best enable life congruence by aligning our core values with our life situation. When we have that harmony, it makes it so much easier to live peacefully. When we deny ourselves something core to us, we create background friction that everything else then must run up against.

Thanks to my supportive partner, I am planning my next solo adventure to Norway and Sweden at the end of August. I’ve started pondering how I can bring my children along on different adventures in the future. I’m weighing all my options.

While I still may never go back to Paris, I do want to experience it again, with a different name, in another space and time.

Have you ever thought about what value is most core to you?

Do some of your memories of feeling most alive also align with a time when you were living in harmony with those values?

If you’re not currently honoring them in your life, is there a way to make some space?

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