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Posts Tagged ‘friendship’

  1. The bucket theory

    May 9, 2012 by Audrey

    When I first arrived in Lyon, I met up for drinks with my friends Y. As I was telling her about my new arrival adventures: getting a cell-phone, getting all my administrative paperwork in progress, settling down in my grandmother’s house and helping her with the daily chores and with the overall packing of the house, trying to get my social life together and seeing some friends, keeping an eye on my Philadelphia clients, keeping up with the blog… and complaining that I missed going to the gym and I was looking for a good one; she looked at me puzzled and asked: “How do you fit it all in?”

    I didn’t feel like I was doing anything extravagant… How could she, a working-mother-of-two, wonder how I could fit everything into a single-working-from-home-free-as-a-bird life? I have no obligation to anyone but my clients, the administration (once in a while) and myself. I don’t have anyone depending on me, and someone else is making my meals… How can I NOT fit it all in?

    Well, if you noticed, I took a 10-days hiatus from blogging. Why? Because Y. was right to be doubtful. It appears that I’m no wonder woman and that I have to stop putting everything at the same level. Obviously, after taking a short break to visit my parents, I short-circuited. Was I drowning myself into work and all that good stuff to avoid looking at the reality: I have no idea where my life is going? One can think so. I don’t know. All I know is that if I want to keep my sanity and keep everyone happy: clients, friends, family… I’m going to have to do some serious prioritization.

    Enters “the bucket theory”. It’s a classic from time management training and it’s time for me to use it. That’s how it goes: how do you fit big rocks, stones, sand and water in a bucket? You only can if you start from the bigger items. Fill your bucket with water first and you won’t be able to add anything else to it!

    Same thing goes with my days; putting my bucket together would look like:

    1. The Rocks:
    Weekdays: my clients. Whether they’re French or American; whether it’s about working on projects or working on administrative stuff to get the business going, or even attending networking events. This is my #1 priority.
    Weekends: my friends and family. Time with others is always time well spent.

    2. The Stones:
    Me, myself and I: doing the things that I like and the things that I need. Feeding my creative side by taking time for reading, writing, going to the movies or seeing an exhibit; taking care of my body by not skipping the gym – 10K here I come!

    3. The Sand:
    The not-so-fun stuff that needs to get done: grocery shopping, cleaning the house, running errands, doing all this administrative craziness…

    4. The Water:
    The fillers. Everything else.

    If I can stick to that plan, I should be in good shape, right?

    How do you manage your time? What’s in your bucket?

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  2. The art of writing | Part 2

    April 7, 2012 by Audrey

    I made a vow, back in January, to write more cards… It was about time to comply.

    When I decided to move back to France, I was confident that thanks to today’s technology, I would keep in touch with my American friends pretty much the same way that I did while I was there. After all, we have Facebook to keep in touch with each others’ lives, we have emails to give news on a regular basis, we even have iMessages to chat about in the moment adventures (granted the time zones are in our favor).

    I joked once to a friend: “We’re so lucky, what did we do before telephone & internet?” What we did: we wrote.

    When I celebrated my departure a couple of weeks ago, my (lovely) friends, came armed with gifts and cards… It was my duty to properly thank them, and the least I could do was to pen a few thank you cards. Because of how crazy things were before I left, those cards had to wait for me to settle-down here and find a little bit of time. But what I did not realize until I did that was:

    • I did not even have a physical address for most of my friends. Since we started hanging out on the “Inter Web”, did we forget that people live in actually houses, somewhere? Addresses can be so poetic… I always wanted to live in Loveland, CO, just to be able to get mail there.
    • I enjoyed the feeling of the ink on the paper. Granted it was a ball pen and a simple white card. But the silence of it was nicer than the clic-clic of my keyboard.
    • Writing those few cards gave me a stronger feeling of accomplishment (when I dropped them in the mailbox) than sending all the emails in the world.

     

    Exercise was conclusive. There will be more cards written in my future.

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  3. Moving Away – Moving Back

    February 27, 2012 by Audrey

    Tomorrow will be exactly one month before I board a plane back to France. I have now lived in Philadelphia for 8 years and have been calling this city my home for a while. And here I am, starting everything all over again.

    There are so many emotions linked to a move abroad. Whether it’s a move away or a move back, or both (in my case).

    8 years ago, I was moving away. I was leaving behind me the comfort of a familiar city, a close family and a faithful group of friends. I remember taking the subway, about a week before I left, and running into someone I knew. It became clear to me, at that moment, that it was time to go. I was craving the idea of being incognito and being able to reinvent myself; become the person I knew (thought?) I was. The person that wasn’t tied to family expectations, friends assumptions due to our common history, or even general reputation.

    The week after I arrived in Philly was the week two major TV series season finales were released. In Friends, Rachel accepts a job in Paris and then changes her mind when Ross declares his love to her. And I thought: “What if I missed my opportunity for that one-true-love?” And I cried. In Sex & the City, Carrie moves to Paris to follow Aleksandr and then becomes home sick and misses her friends. And I thought: “What if I lose my friends?” And I cried.

    It only took a few more weeks for me to realize that:
    1. I was already making some great new friends (2 of them I met within the first 48 hours I had moved here)
    2. There was plenty of male eye candy in Philadelphia and I had a lot to learn and experiment about the American culture of dating.

    8 years later, I’m back. But this time, I don’t feel like I’m leaving anything behind. All the great things that I have found here, I’m taking with me: my experiences, my memories, my freedom.  Friends, I have all over the world at this point. And I’m lucky to live in the 21st century where Internet keeps people connected and where everyone only lives a plane-ride away. As for my one-true-love… Who knows? Maybe he was there, all that time, just waiting.

    Had you asked me a few month ago how I felt about the possibility of moving back to France, the answer would not have been pretty. Behind the tears was a terrorizing fear of the unknown. But, somehow, I don’t feel fear anymore. I feel excitement about the unknown. I’m not sad about the days left behind, I’m looking forward to the days to come.

    I want to close that chapter of my life, with words from my favorite poem: If by Rudyard Kipling

    …
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
    …
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
    …
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much:
    …
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

     

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  4. The Wise One

    January 30, 2012 by Audrey

    This week I traveled to Houston, TX. What’s in Houston might you ask…

    Houston has been for several weeks now the location of Aloha Base Camp: a room at the Jesse H. Jones Rotary House, only a skybridge away from MD Anderson. If you’re lucky, you’ve never heard of MD Anderson and you have no idea what I’m talking about.

    The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has ranked #1 in cancer care in the “America’s Best Hospitals” survey published in U.S. News & World Report for eight of the past 10 years, including 2011. When you have been living with stage 4 Metastatic cancer for over 2-years and you just got diagnosed with an additional cancer in your spinal fluid, when you need a shunt in your head to drain fluid down to your belly and an Ommaya reservoir to allow intra-cranial chemotherapy, that’s where you want to be. So that’s where Team Tigger has set up camp, affectionately nicknamed Aloha Base Camp.

    My friend V. has been on a healing mission since she was diagnosed with Lobular Carcinoma breast cancer in the summer of 2009. That mission first took her to Atlanta, GA, where she was treated at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. The goal was to get closer to her friends and family; and that’s where Team Tigger started to form: V.’s husband, her family, her childhood friends. All along, V. has wanted us to trust ”To fear for me is not loving me” she said in her CaringBridge Diary. She always thought, and still thinks, that she will beat that cancer. Both of them.

    On June 16, 2010 V. celebrated her 45th birthday in Atlanta. In February of 2011, she was feeling good enough to move back to Maui, HI. Before this week, the last time I saw V. was in September, in Las Vegas, NV where she had a celebration for life with her 17 closest girl friends. Those women finished putting the T behind Team Tigger and when in December V. had to be rushed to MD Anderson developed an intricate support system that I’m extremely grateful to be a part of.

    So, when I disappeared for a few days last week, that’s where I was, at Aloha Base Camp. It was my turn to take care of our friend. I helped preparing her meals, and was on pill-watch because I’m better at following a schedule than her big Australian Teddy Bear of a husband. I was a sounding board for the rest of the team (husband, dad and stepmom), and a presence and source of entertainment for V.

    Again V. is a miracle. I was expecting to find a sick person, I found a healing person. V.’s favorite joke: “you girls are so crazy that all of you know that I pooped before I even get out of the bathroom”. Yup, that’s how tight the Ocean 17 net is. V.’s laughter is contagious.

    V.’s stepmom nicknamed me “The Wise One” because I tried to direct all my love and energy into appeasing the fears and the anger that we all develop against cancer. I concentrated on trying to bring everyone together into a strong loving bound. I tried to stay objective and at peace. I absorbed. I discovered that 45 minutes can feel like hours when you are witnessing a friend being in pain and you know that there’s a way to relieve her but you can’t and you have to wait. I realized that the family ties are among the strongest and the weakest at the same time. I experienced empathy in its purest, rawest, draining form.

    Everyday I try to respect V.’s request and not to fear. She gave me this necklace that says “Trust” and I’m caring it around my neck. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little afraid of letting go of my fear and simply trust. But for V. I’ll try to take the leap of faith, because I don’t think I’m the Wise One, I think she is.

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: ,, | 3 Comments

  5. Me Day

    January 23, 2012 by Audrey

    So, as I mentioned in my previous post, yesterday was my birthday. I wanted the celebration to be simple and sophisticated. And it was.

    First, I woke-up to a white Philadelphia. It made me smile. My “Indian name” is Birthday In The Snow… A long story for another post some day.

    Second, I treated myself to a movie: The Artist. And it was a perfect balance of beautiful picture and incredible acting. Just laughed a little bit when I was able to hear Jean Dujardin’s French accent in the only spoken line he has in the entire movie. Cute.

    Third, K. and M. took care of my birthday dinner: some tofu/pineapple/collard greens concoction (M. is vegan) that was a delight for the taste buds. Funny that I actually happen to really like Tofu, and I’m not sure they even knew that.

    Mr. J.J. was in charge of my birthday dessert, Creme Brulee. Second year in a row, I think it’s starting to become a tradition. I’m wondering he’s going to make that happen next year.

    It was a small dinner at home, just 5 of us, and it was wonderful. We cracked open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, left-over from New Year’s Eve and had conversation about sex, death and nuclear pipes. What’s not to love?

    Next and final pit-stop was at R2L, and its fantastic view of the city. There, a dozen of my friends gathered around a dessert plate (playing second serving with desserts here, don’t tell anyone), gesture of the establishment and their adorable Sales & Marketing Manager.

    I realized several things last night:

    1. I couldn’t have been better surrounded than by the people that were there. They’re the friends that stuck with me through good times and rough patches.

    2. I have a LOT of girl friends… Gentleman, they’re such an amazing group of ladies… It you don’t snag the single ones quick someone else will!

    3. My tolerance to SideCars is highly improved – which I’m grateful for. The day my tolerance for brandy/bourbon/whiskey-based drinks will be directly proportional to my love for them will be a happy day.

    So, here we are, the beginning of another year. It’s going to be a fantastic journey!

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  6. Looking back on 2011

    December 31, 2011 by Audrey

    It was very hard to find one picture to summarize an entire year. So I decided to pick the one that represents the highest values that I encountered in 2011: friendship, support, hunger for life, positive thinking.

    The bright smile in the pink dress, in the center, is my friend V. Before going to Vegas in September I only knew one of the other women. They came from California, Georgia, Texas, Arizona… All we had in common was love (so much love) for our friend V.

    Since those happy few days in Sin City, V.’s healing mission has encountered a few bumps in the road. But what she created by bringing those 17 women together is one of the strongest, most genuine, and generous bunch I ever encountered. We nicknamed ourselves the Ocean 17, and over the past month or so, we have been communicating daily, sharing information, supporting each other, gathering forces to support V. as things became scary and difficult.

    Of course, 2011 came with its share of ups and downs; new friends and lost friends, new ventures and monotonous days, love and tears… For me, it ends with an open heart and the promise of new beginnings; but most importantly it will remain the year that I witnessed what love and friendship can do, and I’m immensely grateful to be able to be part of that.

    With that being said, tonight I will raise my glass of champagne to V. and I will wish that everyone, one day, meet someone as fantastic as her.

    Aloha Power to all and Happy New Year!

    Category Lifestyle | Tags: | 3 Comments