Once upon a time in Paris…

My very wise sister once theorised that life moves in five-year cycles: every five years or so there is a desire (or need, perhaps) for change, for a new chapter. Five years ago, I moved to Paris. What started as just an ERASMUS year, turned out to be the year that changed my life. It was, of course, the year that I met Florian – the year that I met the man I was destined to marry. It was a year full of memories that I will carry with me for a lifetime.

And tomorrow, Florian and I will go to Paris, the final destination of our Europe trip together. It seems only right that this five-year chapter – the most exciting five years of my life so far – ends where it began. Although we have been back to Paris since moving to London, somehow this visit feels more significant. It feels like the end of an era; and I am full of anticipation for the next chapter of our lives. I am already dreaming of what the next five years will bring, and I am bursting with hope and positivity.

Paris was a funny time of life. I was both thrilled with life and desperate to return home to my family. This is a feeling I seem to constantly walk around with: happiness, but always with a lingering feeling that everything would be so much better if it was spent with my family too. In Paris though, I constructed my own little family, and though it only lasted for those ten months, it was a very precious family. My life revolved around three wonderful people: Florian (of course!) and two of my most cherished friends, Charlee (you might remember her from Sicily?) and Chloe. I imagine that the next few days in Paris will fill me with memories of my Paris family – people who I truly love – and a longing, once again, for home and all the people that I will find there.

I don’t know how I feel about God, or destiny versus coincidence, but somehow this all feels like it was meant to be. Florian and I were meant to be in Paris, for whatever reason, to meet each other; to fall in love; to get married; and to embark on this adventure that has taken us across Europe and will now take us back to where it all began.

The end of this trip, I believe, will mark the end of our first five-year cycle together. And what an amazing cycle it has been. My advice to people is always to remember – to remember why you are together, how you got together. Whenever I look back and remember our early days together in Paris, I feel warm and happy inside, knowing that I will always have those wonderful memories. Because, really, that’s what life is, isn’t it? Collecting memories all the time, wherever you go, whatever you do.

I love to remember; I love to look back at what was, to observe what is, and to dream of what will be.