I leave on Friday for Lyon...
I am staying with my host counselor Rotarian on Friday through Sunday and then she is gonna hand me off to another Rotarian who owns a hotel, Alix, and she is gonna set me up until I find an appt, which I hope will be soon because I need some stability in my life right now.
Tomorrow I have to sit in a phone booth for an hour and make Saturday appts for Marie and I to go appt shopping. I imagine that this will be very stressful!
Why I need some stability:
My very dear friend Nathan, a fellow Rotary ambassadorial scholar going to Strasbourg with whom I've spent the last month with here in Tours is having a Crisis.
My best friend, and her family (my family) from Conway, AR is in the middle of a huge Crisis as well.
I am very stressed out right now and I have got a lot to deal with, and all I can do is be pensive! I can't even cry yet. It's sad really. And all I want to do is hold my best friend and/or my mother and/or Nathan.
And I want to cry, but I can't. I can't because I have been practicing holding it in all week for my friend Nathan, who I see in class everyday almost on the brink of tears. It's all I can do to not cry myself. Just to see him sitting there in his own world, unaware of everything around him.
Can you please send some empathy to a fellow ambassodorial scholar named Nathan Rabalais, my friend from Lafayette, Louisiana who I met in Houston when we got our VISA's. He is here now with me in Tours at the langauge school, and we are about to wrap it up and move to our respective cities, and he got an email early this week saying that his dad has a blood clot in his head and his whole left side is paralyzed. It is completely horrible. In Lafayette, Nathan's dad fell down in the middle of the night, he had a stroke, and Nathan's poor sister found him there mumbling and nearly unconcious. Nathan found out a day later, told the teacher what happened, and then emailed me a while later. I was terrified!
I had just spent all day Sunday with him, happy as could be, going to caves and walking along the Loire River; we exchanged information about our families, him telling me about how he and his dad are best friends, me telling him how me and my mom are best friends. He talked so much about how much he loves and respects his dad, and it's just horrible that this happens...we are so far away from home and it just really hits home for me, and I am truly having a hard time with it. I have been almost in tears for the past week because of it. But I can't cry. It's pathetic really.
And then the whole Sarah situation happens days later, right after Nathan had gone through "it" and is still going through "it".
Thursday, Nathan was with me when I read Sarah's DREADFUL email about her dad and he excused himself when he saw my eyes welling up with tears and he told me he would come back and then when he did, very calmly, he asked me in a very composed manner, if Sarah's dad had passed. I looked him in the eyes and I said that I wasn't going to talk about it with him because I didn't want him to start crying, and he looked at me, saying in tender frankness: "Jess, you are such a sweet person". I said the same. Then he said: "If you want to talk about it I could be there for you." I said that I didn't want to put him through that.
Moments after it happened, I appreciated it immediately as something that I will look back on as a profound moment and conversation in my life.
We said 5 sentences tops:)
Sarah's dad died on Wednesday. He had diabetes and one leg, and his kidneys shut down. He gained 6 pounds in his stomach during the night and then they rushed him to the hospital.
After about a few days, which seemed like a year of not crying, I finally let go the night of our last dinner at my family's house in Tours. This was also, consequentially, the day Nathan left for Strasbourg (to get things straightened out in case he had to leave to go to Lafayette), the day I had to tell Nathan goodbye, and the day when I finally got to talk to Sarah. I just burst out in tears and had to excuse myself from the table. The family looked at me like I was crazy!
So, as you can see, I have a great friend named Nathan, and his life is in shambles at the moment.
Also, as you can see, my best friend's life is in shambles at the moment.
Thus, my life is in shambles as well.
On top of all that, I am moving in about three days, I don't know where I am living, and I am worried to death about Nathan's dad, who is still lying unstable in a hospital bed.
I am staying with my host counselor Rotarian on Friday through Sunday and then she is gonna hand me off to another Rotarian who owns a hotel, Alix, and she is gonna set me up until I find an appt, which I hope will be soon because I need some stability in my life right now.
Tomorrow I have to sit in a phone booth for an hour and make Saturday appts for Marie and I to go appt shopping. I imagine that this will be very stressful!
Why I need some stability:
My very dear friend Nathan, a fellow Rotary ambassadorial scholar going to Strasbourg with whom I've spent the last month with here in Tours is having a Crisis.
My best friend, and her family (my family) from Conway, AR is in the middle of a huge Crisis as well.
I am very stressed out right now and I have got a lot to deal with, and all I can do is be pensive! I can't even cry yet. It's sad really. And all I want to do is hold my best friend and/or my mother and/or Nathan.
And I want to cry, but I can't. I can't because I have been practicing holding it in all week for my friend Nathan, who I see in class everyday almost on the brink of tears. It's all I can do to not cry myself. Just to see him sitting there in his own world, unaware of everything around him.
Can you please send some empathy to a fellow ambassodorial scholar named Nathan Rabalais, my friend from Lafayette, Louisiana who I met in Houston when we got our VISA's. He is here now with me in Tours at the langauge school, and we are about to wrap it up and move to our respective cities, and he got an email early this week saying that his dad has a blood clot in his head and his whole left side is paralyzed. It is completely horrible. In Lafayette, Nathan's dad fell down in the middle of the night, he had a stroke, and Nathan's poor sister found him there mumbling and nearly unconcious. Nathan found out a day later, told the teacher what happened, and then emailed me a while later. I was terrified!
I had just spent all day Sunday with him, happy as could be, going to caves and walking along the Loire River; we exchanged information about our families, him telling me about how he and his dad are best friends, me telling him how me and my mom are best friends. He talked so much about how much he loves and respects his dad, and it's just horrible that this happens...we are so far away from home and it just really hits home for me, and I am truly having a hard time with it. I have been almost in tears for the past week because of it. But I can't cry. It's pathetic really.
And then the whole Sarah situation happens days later, right after Nathan had gone through "it" and is still going through "it".
Thursday, Nathan was with me when I read Sarah's DREADFUL email about her dad and he excused himself when he saw my eyes welling up with tears and he told me he would come back and then when he did, very calmly, he asked me in a very composed manner, if Sarah's dad had passed. I looked him in the eyes and I said that I wasn't going to talk about it with him because I didn't want him to start crying, and he looked at me, saying in tender frankness: "Jess, you are such a sweet person". I said the same. Then he said: "If you want to talk about it I could be there for you." I said that I didn't want to put him through that.
Moments after it happened, I appreciated it immediately as something that I will look back on as a profound moment and conversation in my life.
We said 5 sentences tops:)
Sarah's dad died on Wednesday. He had diabetes and one leg, and his kidneys shut down. He gained 6 pounds in his stomach during the night and then they rushed him to the hospital.
After about a few days, which seemed like a year of not crying, I finally let go the night of our last dinner at my family's house in Tours. This was also, consequentially, the day Nathan left for Strasbourg (to get things straightened out in case he had to leave to go to Lafayette), the day I had to tell Nathan goodbye, and the day when I finally got to talk to Sarah. I just burst out in tears and had to excuse myself from the table. The family looked at me like I was crazy!
So, as you can see, I have a great friend named Nathan, and his life is in shambles at the moment.
Also, as you can see, my best friend's life is in shambles at the moment.
Thus, my life is in shambles as well.
On top of all that, I am moving in about three days, I don't know where I am living, and I am worried to death about Nathan's dad, who is still lying unstable in a hospital bed.
