Monday, July 9, 2012

Au revoir, Paris

Today is my birthday. I can’t think of a better way of celebrating it than by being in this beautiful city. 

Today is also our last day here, and we spent part of the day finishing packing and cleaning up and meeting with our landlady, but we made time for a special dinner at one of our favorite nearby brasseries, L'Etoile 1903. One last confit de canard, one last carafe of wine before we head back to reality.

I was going to title this entry "Goodbye, Paris," but I realized that although it's time to go, this is not goodbye, it's just au revoir―till we see each other again. 

A year ago we were dreaming of Paris. Now we’ve lived out our dream, and beneath the sadness of leaving is a feeling of joy and happiness, a sense of accomplishment for having taken the chance to live our dream and deep gratitude for having been able to live such a wonderful experience.

We joke that this may be the best year of our lives, but if it’s not, it certainly will be one of the best. The kids enjoyed it too, and have even thanked us for bringing them here ("making us come to Paris" may have been someone's exact words).

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
― Dr. Seuss