FROM THE NORM TO THE MARGIN

I want to erase my dark circles.

Fiftieth chapter. This number has a special significance for me.

It was in my fiftieth year that I decided to leave the devil behind and escape with my children. The first decision of my life that I made alone and the best decision too. I realise that I am the one who knows best what suits me. It's incredible that I've reached this age to understand it. I have an excuse: I've always been slow. It's a bit of a lame excuse, but hey. 

I'm writing today after a day during which I've done nothing but sleep, or almost nothing. I'm not very proud of myself. I wonder what's happened to me since I've been here, but I'm taking naps like never before. I fall asleep in front of films I like, which was almost impossible before. I haven't heard of tsetse flies in Indonesia so that can't be a good explanation. Yes, I stayed up late two nights in a row, but that doesn't explain everything. 

The stress of all those years, the effort to get through it, all of it has taken its toll on me. When I look in the mirror I can't ignore the dark circles under my eyes. I think I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. So it's true that going to bed at half past one in the morning and getting up at seven in the morning does sting a bit during the next day with a full schedule.

So when six o'clock strikes and my daughter and I are sitting on the beach for our end of week ritual (cocktail tasting sitting on beanbag chairs from which I extricate myself with great difficulty and of course great class...) I run in slow motion. For the second time my daughter is confronted by an indo we see regularly who asks for her instagram to be "friends" with her. Guys stop saying you want to be friends with girls.

When I hear that men are straightforward and there is never any subtext with them, stop!!! None of them look at a girl and say: "I would like to be friends with her and nothing else". And girls, stop believing them. I talked about it with my last one and it just happened to be true. For them it's just another opportunity to date a chick. As a feminist, I have to admit that men and women are unquestionably different.

We don't think the same, we don't look for the same things, we don't react in the same way. I wonder how we can spend a life (or part of a life) together. At what point can we get on the same wavelength? Honestly, it makes me tired and angry that I can't talk to a male person without being suspicious of what I'm saying and my body language. 

Anyway, after the beach time, we go home. My daughter has to meet her friends for the first evening of the Christmas holidays. She's due to leave at around eight o'clock. In the meantime we settle down to watch an episode of Castle. Surprised, I fall asleep and wake up two hours later. In front of me, my daughter is all dolled up. She is so beautiful, my princess.

As I do every time I tell her to be careful, to avoid excesses, to avoid situations she doesn't feel, and to call me if she is in danger at any time. She replies that I know her so I don't have to worry. I know that my last one doesn't like to sleep anywhere but in her bed. So whatever time it is at the end of the night, she comes home. I have to tell you that here, unlike in France, there are "bike-taxis" at any time of the day or night. That's why I spend the hours after her departure watching episodes of Kdrama while waiting for her to come back. Around three o'clock I can't take it anymore, my eyes close by themselves. I put my phone on the ringer next to my head and fall into the arms of Morpheus before I can say goodnight. At about four o'clock I'm suddenly woken up by the sound of the front door opening. I hear my daughter going up to her room.

I can't believe it; when my children were small I could hear every noise they made during the night. But I couldn't hear anything coming from outside the house.When they grew up, I lost that reflex.Or so I thought.

 I'm glad to know that I've reactivated that sixth sense because I'm not convinced that I'm protecting my daughter enough by allowing her to go out, even though I know who, where, when and how. Even though she has never given me any reason not to trust her.

Uh, reactivating that sixth sense isn't going to help me recover from my lack of rest!