Paris, je t'aime

There was this one time on a train in India; the first class sleeper car was full and I volunteered to ride in the common car so the girls could be comfortable with air conditioning and privacy. I spent the whole night awake and sweating, surrounded by locals sleeping on the floor and cramped on the metal beds. My body had learned to anticipate the jolt that would come as we approached each stop along the way.

Another time I felt it in my apartment in the Philippines. I had been living there for a year with no immediate family and only casual friends. My mom had won the battle and I agreed to return to the US and real responsibility. Some movie was playing on TV and a scene of no particular significance caused me to sob so violently that I had to put down the bowl of instant noodles I was eating.

It must have been no more than 30 minutes, but it felt like hours walking around downtown one night in San Francisco. I was in a severely altered state and seeing the world through a lens that magnified normally inconsequential details. I doubted my steps, my tactile senses, my memory.

I also felt it once in Cambodia. I had returned from watching the sunset over the Temples at Angkor Wat and was the only one in the hotel pool. It was one of the first times I had really traveled the world without my family. Just beyond the trees that surrounded the property was the brightest, fullest moon. I had decided then that nobody could ever tell me it was the same moon that I had admired before.

I awoke to a Man Overboard announcement on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Africa. We were asked to report to the deck and lend our eyes to the giant swells in search of a single human being. The lights of the rescue markers trailed us as we took a full mile to turn the ship around. There was an eerie silence even though there were hundreds of people standing shoulder to shoulder looking out at the vastness with one common hope.

Then there’s now. I’m in Paris, the City of Lights...or Love, as they call it. And I feel completely alone. I’ve spent the past week wandering around aimlessly. Getting off the train at random stops to discover typical streets with more charm than I could have ever imagined. Everything is infused with charm. Even the bench I’m sitting on as I write this is charming. It’s so charming here, people openly display their affection for one another without shame or pause. It’s so charming here, their public displays don’t bother me at all. There was a time in my life when I would have hated Paris for the sake of hating it.. for everything it stands for in popular culture.. songs, paintings, poems. Take it as a sign of age, but all of this romance is inspiring now.

Somehow over the years, I have convinced myself to dictate what love is supposed to look like, when I’m supposed to expect it, how it’s supposed to feel. How quickly I have forgotten that I've found love in the unlikeliest places when I least expected it. It’s shameful to imagine a feeling as static when I am constantly evolving. I only measure my age by the drastic changes I can pinpoint in the development of my character, attitude and outlook. I have lived so many lives, been so many people.

One measurable change is how I view sex. I use to assign it such casual importance. Not to say I’m now against having it randomly, but I find myself infusing physical connection with warmth. To be honest, I’ve never been really comfortable with randomness, but I’ve always been able to excuse it with youthful inexperience. Doing it for the sake of it. But it’s different now. Whereas I used to think, “I totally want to do it with that hottie over there,” I now think, “I totally want to do it with that hottie over there… then maybe have a picnic lunch at the park afterwards.” Oh, man.

Somehow over the years, I also began turning my insecurities inward. For a pretty arrogant guy, nothing made me live inside my head more than wondering why I’m single. I would ponder --usually before bed-- the possible reasons why I was in bed alone. Thinking about it now makes me feel ridiculous. The reason why I was alone was because… I chose to be alone—whether it was because I was uninterested in my choices, busy, or just not into the feeling, I chose not to make the commitment. My problem was I had trouble rectifying what I wanted with what was expected of me.

The glory of feeling completely alone is that it instills confidence. Whenever I feel completely alone, I recognize my ability to get through the emotion. I recognize that at the end of the day, I’ll always have… me. I'm the only thing I can control. The greatness of feeling completely and utterly alone is that it forces me to become the kind of man that I hope to be. It allows me to invest in growing my patience, my kindness… my ability to love others.

All around me there are people expressing their love in pairs. He’s got his arm around her shoulders to keep her warm. She’s got her arm around his waist just above the belt of his overcoat. I’ll be patient until I can find someone who makes me feel that I want to do such things. I won’t try to cultivate the romance from nothing, make it appear out of thin air. I won’t convince myself that it exists when I’m bored or drunk. I’ll anticipate it and be ready for it. In the meantime, I’ll continue working on myself with the quiet hope that I’ll find someone who is moved by my gestures and we'll serve our purpose. Until then, I’ll love This city, everything it stands for and seeks to instill. And it’s charm. Completely alone.