Friday, July 2, 2010

It's quittin' time...

In French the verb quitter means "to leave, quit, depart..."  There's actually many instances in which it can be used.  It is also a verb I have been using frequently. Je vais quitter le pays le 5 juillet.  I am going to leave the country the 5 of July.

Quitter seems to imply a sort of finality to my time here, as opposed to partir, which I think of as a more day-to-day verb.  For example, if someone asked what time I was leaving a party, or when I would leave for vacation, or how to get from one place to another, I would use partir.  In all actuality, they are probably pretty interchangeable verbs, but I like the sound of quitter in the sentence.  It sounds like I'm quitting the country, which I am.

But what does it mean to me to be quittin' the country?  It's such a mishmash of emotion and stress and packing and sending cancellation letters and printing tickets and squaring of edges and dotting i's and crossing t's that I can't even begin to describe how I feel about it all.  Well, I can begin... but it won't do it justice.

Many many people have asked what I will miss about France, and my responses always seem so inadequate.
Sure, I'll miss two hour lunches and lots of vacation days and baguettes and delicious pastries and safely riding my bike on the highway and housing assistance.  I won't miss living in a small room with (*cough* sparkling clean) community bathrooms.  I won't miss the language barrier between me and bank employees, shops closing early, the rights (and lack of rights) to do any various and random sorts of things.
I find myself stuck in a rather difficult emotion.  I'm so excited to see Kevin and my friends and my family.  I'm excited to start my masters, to live in a new place.  At the same time, I'm incredibly sad that this is the end (for now) of my life in France.  The things I'll miss most about living here are more abstract than food and vacation time....

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