𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑⁰¹ʰᵉᵐᵐⁱⁿᵍˢ✓

⁴⁹pilea

clementine

Though I feel my body weigh down in sleeplessness, my mind is wide awake with the warmth of my excitement. I don't feel the hours of being awake catching up to me, nor the cold in the wind biting my skin — instead, between the snow-filled cities and the signs around me all in my foreign tongue, I feel completely at home.

Arriving in Paris is exhilarating, it makes my blood rush and my feet all jumpy at the thought finally being home. The simple sight of reading French signs makes my heart race, the familiarity settling in me as easily as winter did on my home city.

Right outside, the streets are caked with the familiar white frost, far much thicker than what New York offers.

Everyone is swaddled in their thick coats and scarves, cheeks and noses flushed with the freezing temperature.

The plane ride wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Fortunately for everyone on the plane, there were no crying babies, only the occasional tantrum by a toddler at the far end of the plane.

With so much elation within me, I couldn't sleep for the seven hours overseas. Instead, I managed to fill six hours of my time by watching movies and sketching the couple who sat beside me as they slept — one hour was spent listening to the same couple talk about their wedding and how Paris is their honeymoon spot.

Now that I'm getting into a cab and directing the driver where to go, the anticipation builds inside me, unsure if I'm more nervous than I am excited to see my family again.

I'm home again, and I already feel like a part of me has returned, a part that I didn't even know was gone. The streets look no different, but some new buildings seemed to have appeared, some shops appearing in places I don't think they were in at the time I left.

I see the Eiffel Tower not too far across, standing tall and proud as I drive past it and towards the outskirts of the city.

I lean my head back and close my eyes as a smile befalls on my lips, the feeling of being surrounded by home swallowing me whole and keeping me in its merciless grasp of continuous familiarity and unending nostalgia.

I'm finally here and the excitement slowly fades into calmness, the realisation of my arrival finally fully settling in me.

I departed from this city just to work to come back. It's a cruel irony, but I'm afraid it happens to most people. One time, you're leaving home to follow your ambitions, and before you know it, you're pulling your ambitions on overdrive just so you can return.

I open my eyes when I feel the cab slowly pull over, and I meet the driver's eyes through the rearview.

I pay my fare and get out, letting the driver help me take my bag out and into the snowy sidewalk.

Looking up, I'm met by the five-story apartment complex I grew up in, the beige stone windowsills making me smile, as I remember admiring their architecture, how symmetrical mine looked with the rest.

Squinting, I spot a window on the fourth floor, one I recall to be my parent's bedroom window.

My heart's absolutely racking up my rib cage, but the more I stay out here, the sooner I'll probably freeze to death.

I walk up to the doors and ring the buzzer of apartment two of the first floor, knowing a sweet, old Mrs Maillard who my siblings and I grew up with.

For as long as I can remember, she had always lived in the first floor, always ready to greet Maddie, Ollie, and I when we'd return from school; with our childish grins and book-filled backpacks hung on our shoulders, she'd buzz the doors open for us and hand us each these flower-shaped jammie wheelers.