Planning for Paris--Part I

The closest I ever came to celebrating a milestone birthday in grand fashion was the surprise party my sweet mom tried to throw for me when I turned 16.  Except I picked up the phone one day and heard her telling my church youth group leader about it on another phone in our house.  And then I was conflicted so I pretended not to know about the party and therefore had to feign surprise when the party actually happened.  I took drama in high school and was a fairly dramatic teenager in general--acting wasn't a stretch.  But surprises that aren't really surprises are so...unsurprising.

40.  Just the number.  Commanding of respect.  Harboring implications.

The thing about turning 40 is everyone in your age group/graduating class/same phase of life starts turning 40 around you.  And because I was always among the youngest in my class with a late September birthday, I finally felt the long-awaited thrill of having a late birthday...and it gave me time to think and plan and watch other people celebrate their 40 years--enough to know what resonated and what did not.  If I'm honest, this started around two years before my big day...the birthday wheels began to turn.

Things can get dicey when an English major attempts math, but according to my calculations, the fall I would turn 40 would be a most monumental year, even aside from "the number."  T'would be the fall of 2013:  after 12 years of having a child by my side during the day, all three of my kids would be in school--full-time.  And not just in school--baby to kindergarten, eldest to his first year of middle school.  Two major events in a child's and a mother's life coupled with a milestone birthday for the mother, all of which would culminate in maternal upheaval/devastation/excitement/anticipation for a 12-years-at-home mama.  My daytime hours would look forever different from that day forward.  I approached this event with equal parts dread and wonder....

So what do I do when I want to feel safer and more comfortable in something unknown?  I make a plan.  And God began to use that part of me to birth a vision for an adventure that only could've come from Him.  Eventually, this winding little road led straight to Paris.

PARIS.  Whether this new phase of my life brought on cheering or weeping, I safely estimated that neither croissants nor champagne ever hindered either cause.  And it would give me something thrilling to plan and obsess over so that I began to view 40 as a life-giving moment to anticipate and from which to expect meaning, not a death sentence.  I was in the driver's seat--not this imposing number 40.  But how would it go?  What would it look like?  Would I be alone?  Would Dean take part in this adventure with me?

Having lived overseas for a time while Dean attended graduate school early in our marriage, we had traveled in Europe a good bit already.  We even did a long weekend in Paris fifteen years ago--but it was determined long ago not to have counted.  I barely even remember being there.  It rained the entire three days we were there, we stayed in a seedy hotel and we were in our 20s, not knowing even un petit peu about food or wine.  I remember thinking at the time..."Paris, one day I will need a re-do."  From the traveling we'd done, I knew the typical American approach to visiting Europe and conquering a city with a guide book, a camera and comfortable footwear.  The kind where the goal is to pack in all the sights, check 84 things off a list and exhaust oneself in the process.  This was not the trip I wanted.  I wanted to pretend like...I lived there.  I wanted to be "at home" in Paris.  I wanted to feel like I was in a movie.....        

I felt like two weeks was the minimum I needed to accomplish this and the maximum I could stand to be away from my family.  The kids would all be in school every day from 8-3, so child care would be doable.  I'm a very independent and adventurous spirit and an experienced traveler. But did I really want to do this by myself?  What if I invited a few kindred spirits to join me while I was there?  I could rent an apartment and have some girlfriends and maybe a couple of the women in my family come to meet me there?  That way, I would have companionship on the trip as well as the privilege of sharing my gift with others.  But such an epic life moment and journey...I needed Dean to be a part of that with me.  Wheels were turning, turning, turning....

I decided I would want Dean to come with me at the start.  We'd have time alone in the city together--a proper re-do, fifteen years in the making--and then as Dean departed to return home to care for our young, a steady trickle of visitors would descend.  But would anyone actually do this with me?  Get on a plane to Paris, France??  Before I even asked anyone, I wondered how many would move past the point of saying, "Oui oui!  I really want to!" to informing me they'd booked an actual seat on an airplane.  I estimated three or four ladies might be serious about it.

In the end, I had 15.