Paris Alone

I sit on my taupe couch with its bright red floral print cushions, the one other women love. The one that has more than once heard “Oh, my husband would never let me have that, but I love it” upon first viewing. This couch that seems to represent my singleness in a way I’m starting to resent a little.

I occasionally contemplate getting a new one, but it is a really fucking cute couch.

So instead I rearranged the furniture a couple months ago in a fit of restlessness. Now the picture of Paris that Sue Perkins brought back from Europe for my gram and grandpa sits above the matching floral print arm chair, and I wonder if I should move it. But frankly, I can’t be bothered. I rarely have any houseguests and certainly not any that care about the placement of my artwork. Save for my mother and she didn’t seem perturbed by it.

I often catch myself thinking about going to Paris and finding that exact spot. Just to take a picture. Just to see if it looks at all the same anymore. Perhaps it might. Perhaps it never did.

The Eiffel Tower far off in the distance, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find the exact coordinates where the artist may or may not have sat. But what an adventure it would be to try.

But not alone. I could never handle Paris alone.

Or maybe I could. I simply do not want to.

Alone in Paris I would likely spend the entire time wishing I wasn’t, which would lead to daydreaming. Alone would become lonely. And suddenly I’m no longer in the real world. Or at least I don’t want to be. Because who the fuck wants to go to Paris alone?

Maybe divorcees.

Probably them.

Or women on a self-empowerment trip I have already been on and am totally over. Yeah, yeah, you’re self-empowered, we get it. Move on, Norma Rae.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still self-empowered as shit, but I don’t need to take myself to Paris to celebrate it. Truth be told, I’m pretty over my solo missions. The lone vagabond lifestyle lost its charm somewhere around the seventeenth or eighteenth move, or maybe it was the eighty-second time I flew alone that did it.

Regardless, Paris alone kinda sounds like the worst.

Paris is meant to be shared. Not necessarily with a lover, but certainly with someone that you love. But probably with a lover, because come on, it’s Paris.