On Home
ils me manquent, the ache and wonder of living between two worlds
Every day, ten million people board a flight. Some for work, some to visit family and some to slip away for days of rest or exploration. Every one of those people carries within them their own quiet mix of joy, anticipation, sadness or just the simple excitement of climbing into the clouds and onto a new adventure.
When I boarded a plane to Washington two weeks ago, I felt both excitement and a small ache of sadness building in my chest. Now, as I board my flight back to Paris, the same feeling returns, perfectly mirrored. I’ve felt something like this before, but it’s never struck so hard. How can that be?
I spent two weeks visiting my parents, lucky enough to have been able to pull off a last minute surprise for my brother’s birthday. My mother’s scream when she first saw me was filled with pure shock and excitement. I can still hear it vividly as it plays back in my mind — as if it happened mere moments ago. I spent two weeks watching my mother’s smile lines deepen each time she looked at me, still in disbelief that I was standing right next to her. She’d squeeze me tight each time just to make sure.
Most years for my family’s birthdays, I receive photos and videos of them with their cake. I’d smile at the phone, wishing I could sing happy birthday and eat a slice of cake right alongside them. This time I was lucky enough to take those photos myself.
Since leaving for college, spending major milestones with my family has been a rare luxury. My mom had asked me months ago if I could come for my sister in law’s baby shower and initially, it was out of the question. Somehow, the stars aligned a few weeks before and next thing I knew I was on a plane to surprise them for the birthday and the baby shower. Visiting in October felt like a gift, something so rare, fleeting and beautiful. The crispness of the air, the apple orchards and obligatory apple cider donuts — it suddenly hit me how deeply I’d missed it all.
At the same time, interspersed between the full bodied laughs, delicious home cooked Mexican food and my niece and nephew’s little hands — I felt a gravitational pull hit me from 5,000 miles away. Paris has been my home for just ten months now and being away surprised me in how much I found myself missing it too. A friend recently asked me if Paris was starting to feel like home and without hesitation, as strange as it sounds, I said it felt like home from the very beginning.
As the cake was being cut, despite all my best efforts to stay present with everyone, I found my thoughts drifting. Selfishly, I thought of the autumn air I was missing in Paris. How I’d be gone for two whole weeks as the leaves changed. How much less I’d be walking, how I’d miss popping into my neighborhood coffee shop and saying bonjour to the owners I’ve gotten to know, or simply, how I wouldn’t be bopping around with my friends in the city of lights.
Sometimes, I wonder if I was simply born to live between two worlds — one where I stayed close to home, the other where I moved far, far away. As I balance between the two, I feel stuck in a cycle of yearning for one as I live in the other. Neither world ever feels truly complete, but for a few short moments in time, I’m isolated in the sweet embrace of one. If I’m ever lucky enough to have children, I fear they’ll be bound to the same fate.
A potential future flashes before my eyes. I’m sixty, my children visiting me and their father for a rare birthday celebration, the kind that becomes rare after they turn eighteen. I cherish the days I get with them and in my mind, I beg them to stay longer, even though I know they silently count the days until they can return to their own lives. But who am I to blame them, living it from the other side now, shouldn’t I understand that yearning in retrospect?
What an exquisitely strange ache it is to be born to exist between worlds. To always feel like something is missing, no matter where I am. I wish I could scoop up my favorite fragments and tightly weave them together into a whole that never unravels. Instead, I simply hope this time I can never reclaim is well spent so far from home.
I snap back into my body as my brother cuts the cake. The jokes come back into focus and I can hear my own laughter echo out now between bites. I’m lucky to live this life, I quietly remind myself.
How lucky am I to have things missing from me. Suddenly, the phrase “ils me manquent” makes perfect sense. In English, we say “I miss them”, but in French it translates to “they are missing from me.” Building a life far from the home I grew up in is equal parts invigorating and soul crushing.
How lucky am I for this kismet, this beautiful life that gives me so much to love and so much to miss — so much to feel as I’m suspended between worlds. More precisely, a nine hour time difference. As my day starts to wind down, my loved ones are just beginning theirs. We’re constantly chasing each other through time, catching up on what we’ve missed through the glow of a screen that keeps us connected when we can’t be near.
I sit here wondering — why do my passions lead me to a life 5,000 miles away? Maybe I’m not meant to ask those questions yet — only to live them now and see it all with perfect clarity in a flash back fifty years from now. Until then, the memory of my niece spotting me in the kitchen, freezing in place as a smile reached both of her cheeks before running into my arms will forever be etched into my memory. She held onto me until I had to leave for the airport — her small pout signaling a “why?” I can’t possibly begin to answer as I said goodbye. It will haunt me until we’re reunited again.
Follow me on Instagram and TikTok for more snippets of daily life in Paris. You can also find me on Indyx if you’d like to take a peek at what I’m wearing.
Leaving was harder this time — I suspect this is how it will always be. As everyone ages between the months and years since you last saw each other, you’re forced to see how much time has really passed in an instant.
Thank you for indulging me on another self reflective piece — one born from the space between worlds, where love and longing intertwine.
xx Ofelia
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This was beautiful, Ofelia. As someone who chose to move away from my family because of a desire for a certain lifestyle (no car, city, etc) this resonated more than I can say. Thank you for sharing your writing with us all. It’s a gift ❤️
More self reflective pieces, please! This was beautiful, Ofelia. ❤️