5

Tokyo, Japan

Here and now; we had landed in Tokyo [40]. The start of yet another adventure that awaited. But, this time, I felt much more aware of everything, everything I experienced I did so very sensibly. I felt fragile, I didn’t have all that excitement that I once had each time we would move.

I also felt some kind of mental idleness. Strangely enough, I wasn’t particularly keen to meet new people in that specific period. It was a period in which I became much more conscious of our lifestyle; its assets and liabilities.

We arrived in Tokyo in the summer, in August. It was very warm. We had a very good summer which we had spent around France, Spain and Italy visiting our families and friends. It had been the best summer of my life; but I said that every single summer. There was something about those never-ending days of sun, free time, events and travels that made summer my favourite time of the year. There wasn’t a single summer in which I didn’t fall in love with life. We usually made the most of each summer by traveling to visit our families in France and Italy but we also tried to meet up with my parent’s closest friends and booked airbnbs for the three families to fit in which was always fun. One of the families is a couple of a Portuguese wife and a French husband who had two boys and the other is a couple of a Dutch husband and a French wife; they were my mother’s best friends. They had four boys and a girl who were Ali and I’s childhood best friends, we had known one another since we were in kindergarten. It was a little sad not to be able to grow together in our everyday lives, but it was always nice and special to see each other grow over the years and have a friend to call without them being fully involved in your everyday life. I loved those summers, we always came back with very good memories to look back on from the gorgeous locations we would go to. Overall, counting each of our summer travels, we had gone to Portugal, Italy, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Canary Islands and China. Summer was simply a wonderful period, it was a reality far from everyday life’s one. I guess that’s why it was so hard to let go of; and therefore, September was always a melancholic month.

Tokyo looked very developed, it was really clean and it was modern. It reminded me of New York with its shiny buildings and the city parks. It is a very densely populated city with the whole of The Greater Tokyo Area [41] recording a population of about more than thirty six million inhabitants. The first thing I noticed was how clean the metro was, it was as clean as the metro in Singapore which was the cleanest metro I had ever seen. It was a first for us, but this time we were going to live in an apartment. We were in Naka-Meguro; a residential district near the city-centre of Tokyo. It was a big apartment on the ground floor though; it had two simple bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet, the living room, the kitchen and a master bedroom with its own bathroom and toilet. Japanese apartments and houses were new to us, first of all, Japanese toilets. They are called Washlet [42] toilets and are far too high tech compared to any other toilets. My mother even started thinking about making a business out of them; exporting them in Europe. There was also the fact that shoes must be removed at the entrance and the rest of the house must be circulated through in slippers, socks or barefooted. Being a cleanliness maniac, I was very pleased with this. The trash collection was very specific, there were days weekly marked with the exact trash they would collect and the scheduled time. Over there, sorting out your trash is very important.

We had, I think what was about one month with borrowed temporary emergency furniture while waiting for our containers to arrive. This was always a fun part of the process in moving. Each time you got to discover living with less, which felt nice for a little and then we would realise how comfortable it is to live with it all. All the little material things that help us feel grounded when we’re away from home. Those things that don’t matter in the end of life, but that we all adore.

Once they arrived, I redecorated my now smaller bedroom and I loved it. It was a very simple room, but it was cozy and I felt so very comfortable in it. Our living room was the best, we had big windows that gave view to our little terrace which we could see the horizon from as we were on a hill. We had two dining tables, a sofa a TV, a piano and all different kinds of furniture from all over the world. We settled down quite well after doing the training and earthquake simulations, we were warned and we were set. I think we experienced our first earthquake what washout the fourth night spent in our apartment; it really did shake us up and it’s weird to say, but it is a fun sensation. We were warned that because Tokyo was geolocated in the Pacific Ring of Fire [43] which was the reason why there were so many so often. It was so nice to have a smaller surface from the over spacious house we had in Thailand. We really enjoyed it.

We also got to meet our neighbours, they were a famous couple who were both musicians, Rhyme and Shinichi and Rhyme. Schinichi is a famous Japanese Musician and Producer who has his own music bar in Ginza and Rhyme is a poet, a DJ and a model. They were a crazy duo and they were great neighbours, we would be confided into looking after their cat ‘Kuro’ which means black boy in Japanese.

We started going around the metro stations and discovering the neighbourhoods of Tokyo. It was such a great place to be independent teenagers in, the metro was really well organised and practical; the train was hardly ever late other than in the moments in which there were incidents. Tokyo was definitely a city to walk all over in. There were numerous wonderful neighbourhoods with different styles and architecture. And ah, must I point out the food. It was exquisite. People say that you either love or hate it. I was definitely in love with Japanese food. Whether it was the ’Udon’, ’Ramen’ or ’Soba soups’; the ’Sushi’, ’Sashimi’, ’Tempura’ or ’Tofu’ and the ’Tamagoyaki’; the ’Miso soup’, the ’Okonomiyaki’ or the ’Onigiri’; the ’Gyoza’, ’Takoyaki’ and ’Yakisoba’; I truly loved it all. The desserts were my favourite part though ,they had a talent in making the most unique desserts in the world. My favourites were the fluffy pancakes that you could get in numerous wonderful cafes all over Tokyo. I also love anything with a green tea base or glimpse. There was ’Shio daifukus’, all different kinds of ’Mochis’ and ’Dangos’. There were ’Mizu Manjūs’, ’Akafukus’, ’Imagawayakis’, ’Mame daifukus’, Japanese cheesecakes, ’Zenzais’, ’Dorayakis’, ’Taiyakis’ and the list goes on. It was a full menu full of exquisite tastes that only Japanese cooks have managed to master. The cozy and cute cafe or restaurant culture is very common in Japan, most people eat out at least once a week. There are plenty all over the city and some of them are renown for their unique themes. If you look on any Tokyo City guide, you can find endless lists ranging from the Kawaii Monster Cafe, The Robot restaurant, Alice in wonderland Book restaurant, the Ninja restaurant, the Sengoku Cafe, the Vampire cafe, the Peanuts Cafe, the Pokemon Cafe, the Moon Cafe House or even the Hedgehogs Cafe, Penguin bar or Snake cafe; Tokyo has a non-exhausting list to please all tastes.

I loved the location in which we were, we were two stations away from Shibuya and Harajuku as well as being one station away from Ebisu and from Daikan-Yama which, in my opinion, are the nicest districts of Tokyo. It was a great big city. There was always a new place to discover and it was very lively. There are countless events throughout the year, it is a very dynamic environment and the streets are always full of people.

Time flew, like it always does, and we were on our way to our new school. We had taken entry exams back in Thailand in order to be admitted to this school; oddly, this school was one of the only schools to offer the IB diploma in the centre of Tokyo. So we didn’t have much of a choice but to attend that specific school. Unfortunately for me, despite having passed the entrance exams and to have bought the uniforms, after a week spent in Seisen International School, I quickly came to the point that a girls only catholic school wasn’t going to work for me despite the high level of education that they offered. I felt out of place and it’s not that I didn’t get along with the girls but I just didn’t feel like it was meant for me although the entrance exam had really sparked up something inside of me. It was an essay about your personal development and I remember it causing me to question my whole existence up until now. And there it was, I had a feeling and I had to act upon its, to listen to my gut and intuition. So, I talked to a few people here and there and found out about the International French School of Tokyo (LFIT). We scheduled an appointment with my mother and the principal and I took the entrance exams for it too. The school’s director was a nice woman who warned me about the difficulties of switching educational systems, but it didn’t scare me and I really wanted to go to this school. I liked it much more already just physically. I pictured myself much more in it and it seemed like a good school. So, I got in and was ready to study back in the ‘French High School Educational System’ [44]. I was placed in Première ES which stands for the Economic and social studies. At first I thought it was a mistake, because I associated myself and my academic success on literary subjects and had never done anything related to economics before. But I didn’t really get a say as they were unsure of my level in French regarding general knowledge and grammar; and I had refused to be placed in the sciences series as it wasn’t my strongest domain despite my interest in it. So classes started, I started getting accustomed to the timetable, to the way it all worked again in the French System. Odd, but it really did feel strange at first to see everyone dressed as they wanted. I had really gotten accustomed to the uniform. It felt a little overwhelming at first, everyone had their little groups, we were just a few newbies and we were all a little shy.

Luckily for me, it turned out that because we had a schedule in which we had many different classes and got to meet many different people; I made good friends with a guy in my class named Kaichi which became a close friend as he introduced me to his group of friends. We soon became a nice bunch who hung out every now and then at cafes, restaurants, bars, concerts, nightclubs and we would even party on buildings’ rooftops all over the city. We made many fun high school memories despite some dramas that came up from time to time. I became really close friends with two girls from our group who were both in the Scientific sector; Maëlle and Colette. I loved them so much, they were both such joyful people and we had way too much fun. I admired their personalities, they were just unique.

I remember my first house, or should I say, apartment party had been so wild that we hd been thrown out of the place at three am despite our initial invitation to sleepover. We had ended up hanging around a park and a Starbucks as the trains stopped at midnight. It was a crazy start. Whether it was in school, out in the city or at parties, we always knew how to have a good time. There was never a dull day spent by their side. So, my first year of high school was clearly much more about hanging out with friends and making the most out of being young and careless around such a big city. School wise, I had so much work to do just catching up all the syllabus they had done last year which I did but took my time on; so I didn’t really have the best grades at first but it didn’t really matter as long as I passed. The good thing was that in the French school system we had a flexible calendar in which we had six weeks of classes with intense workload but we also had two week holidays each end of term which was quite practical. It was like taking a twenty minute nap throughout a day just to get some well-needed rest and kickstart one’s energy all over again. And of course, it enabled us to continue our travels as we loved to do. I enjoyed my lifestyle here, it was exciting and we had endless adventures. I had joined the football team which had weekly two hour sessions on Fridays which was the nicest way to end a week full of work. The team was quite good too, we even had some tournaments throughout the year against the other International schools around, it was a lot of fun.

Tokyo was a very pleasant city to live in, my father got a motorbike and took us on rides every now and then, the metro lead anywhere you wanted and it was so nice to walk around. There were pretty things anywhere you went. Autumn was gorgeous and it was sunny even in wintertime. The streets were full of Christmas decorations and it brought so much charm and coziness to the city. The Christmas markets were so wonderful and there was an ice rink in one of my favourite areas called Roppongi. But the best time to visit and walk around Tokyo in was definitely spring in April. It is the cherry blossom season and the city is filled with these pink flowered trees, it is marvellous. The atmosphere at this time of year is infectious, with parks packed with revellers and supermarket shelves stacked with the latest blossom-flavoured snacks and drinks. The blooming of the Sakura flowers only lasts about five to ten days in Tokyo though; and because of climate change, they bloom earlier and earlier each year. We had our first ’Hanami’ [45] in the Yoyogi park that year with some friends. It was such an enjoyable period, there were markets all over the city and we would go out with friends to get those seasonal specialties such as the cherry champagne. It was all so delicious.

That first winter, I had promised Sofia I would go visit her in Russia and my parents had allowed me to go for Christmas! I was beyond excited to see her and her hometown Irkutsk; and as I had a pitstop in Thailand for a connection, I was so happy to be able to see my friends again. Russia had been tough to get a visa for, but once it was confirmed, off I went; spending my first Christmas and New Year’s Eve without my own family. Russia was superb, it was a true winter wonderland. The decorations were fantastic, there was a whole iced sculpture exhibition on the main city square. There was even a giant slide made of ice and a giant ice rink full of decorations with speakers all over to listen to music along the way. It was truly magical, I was so happy to be here with her and her family. We went to the Lake Baikal [46] and went up to a viewpoint with a chair lift. The view was astonishing; the sky became pink as the sun was setting on the horizon. I got to try the best Russian pastries and cakes, chocolate and main dishes. I had fallen in love with the Medovik cake also known as the ‘honey cake’, it was to die for. Her parents We celebrated Christmas with a wonderful Christmas dinner and loads of chocolate and New Year’s Eve with a big family reunion in which Sofia’s aunts and uncles joined us for. I truly felt part of their family and we celebrated like I had never done before. We opened bottles of Martini as well as party poppers and danced the night away. We had gone skiing for our last day here in Russia before flying back to Thailand and then back to Tokyo. I had such an amazing time for a first independent holiday.

Once back in Tokyo, life was back to routine for a little while, fun times with friends, school and the homework and good time with my family despite us being reunited less and less as my father was travelling often for work and Ali and I being in separate schools meant we didn’t have the same schedules. My mother, being also quite busy as she had found a new job in a moving agency and was involved in the association of French citizens in Japan, had pointed out an impacting change in my physique; I think it was the first time I had really seen a difference in my weight, that I had noticed my body’s growth. I had gained curves and put on some unnecessary weight. It wasn’t the first time, as I had similarly had some modifications when I came back from my exchange in England. But this time, my mother had given a fright to my awareness on the matter. I soon started to compare myself to the other girls in school and Japanese women. I felt overweight.

I had always done a lot of sports, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had started to emotionally eat. I guess it was a period in which social media started to become something we were dependant on in a daily basis, adding pressure on our self-esteem and our body image. I had started to fall into the temptation of checking social media and compare myself to the girls with the perfect bodies I saw online. Just like that, I started being so worried about being overweight that I started to look into nutrition and workout videos, I looked at magazines, asked other friends (who’s bodies I admired) for advice. I tried different meal options and restricted my diet. Much too soon, I had lost control of my obsession and became a health freak. I followed all the tips from the Victoria’s Secret Angels and their coaches and trainers. I drank as much water as I could, would skip breakfast and limit my meals to mere salads and fruits. I would work out at least one to two hours a day alongside doing my school work, baby-sitting and partying on the weekends. I had gone mad on my schedule. And that was the first time I burned out.

I had lost eight kilograms and I sill didn’t feel like my body was in the shape that I would see as I scrolled through my social media feeds. I felt horrible and I felt tired and anxious all the time. I had lost my energy and I was going the wrong direction. In that period, I had started to lose myself. It was then that I started to develop a nervous disorder that I still haven’t been able to surpass which I now know to be called ’Tricotillomania’ [47].

Thankfully, my mother was always watching me from a close distance despite her being working a lot. She had done her best to put me back on the right track and mindset, but I wasn’t fully recovered. It was the beginning of a difficult phase.

And then, in early February, I woke up one regular morning and as I entered the living room, Solène had magically appeared. She had decided to do a pit-stop in Tokyo to surprise me, and it had really worked wonders. So, it wasn’t the best timing as I was working on a big school project that one has to accomplish in the first year of High school called ’TPE’ [48], but I guess I could have done a little more to help out my group members. However, I definitely wanted to make the most of Solène’s time and make her discover what life was like here and I certainly don’t regret it. We went to Ginza for her to discover the urban and modern part of Tokyo. We also went to a dog cafe where you could rent a dog to pet or take it on a walk around the park. We had a great week together. It had been a good and comforting break from school and the busy life of Tokyo.

Once the project uploaded, there was going to be the oral presentation, but I wasn’t too worried about that. We still had enough time to prepare for it. That year, the school had organised a four day long outdoor education in Hiroshima [49], the place was astonishing. We were all blown away by the reconstruction of the city, it almost looked as if it were always that way. Looking at it now, no one would have thought that it had once been swept over and struck by an atomic bomb. We were just speechless as we walked where there was once chaos and destruction. We visited the Peace Memorial Park, the museum and had come to the trip having made five paper cranes each as a symbol of respect to the victims of the bombing as they were the Japanese symbol for longevity and happiness. Walking and reading and hearing all about the history of the city made your heart pound. We had a hundred years old woman to telltale how she had lived through the disaster. My eyes started watering as she spoke with such hope. She had been brave and had stood close to her values to get through it all, she never gave up on life despite loosing everything.

All I could think to myself was how cruel our race could be, how could we do this to one another? Looking back today, ethically, there has always been a dis-functionality in the human brain and our survival instinct. We still haven’t mastered our nature and our moral convictions. When will we learn? Haven’t we caused enough terror in the world already? There is this quote I read in the book nineteen-eighty-four written by George Orwell that I read that same year which said: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”.

Overall, the trip had been short but we had come back with a whole new weight on our shoulder and hearts full of gratitude to realise how lucky we all were to be living the life we have today.

Later that year, I had gone skiing with my godmother, uncle and my cousins. The Japanese Mountains were gorgeous, the snow was pure bliss to slide on; it was mainly powdered, my favourite. We were in Niigata which was the nearest skiing destination from Tokyo. We usually had a lot of visitors, it was really fun. My godfather also came to visit with my two nephews and we went to Disneyland Tokyo which was incredible. I had been to the Disneyland in Paris when I was younger, but this one had really blown my mind away. It was a whole new city made in Tokyo. We also went to the Mount Fuji [50] to climb up the first base as the other ones were too complicated for the children to climb up to. We had booked a typical Japanese hotel with ’tatami’ [51], the room was big enough for all of us to fit and we had actually found the futons to be quite comfortable to sleep in. The nature over there was beautiful, it had been a lovely trip. With some other visitors we had been to Kyoto [52] and I had fallen in love with the atmosphere of that city, it was truly a sanctuary of peace. There was a bamboo forest we had walked in called the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, it was a magnificent place; I don’t know how to describe it but it was like walking through a cartoon of Hayao Miyazaki, the very famous Japanese animator director of the Studio Ghibli [53]. But the most breathtaking part of Kyoto was definitely its Fushimi Inari Shrine [54], I had never walked through such a soothing place. It must have been all in the nature surrounding the pathways through the shrines. I felt light-headed and calm, the view on the city also brought some kind of freedom as it extended far out to the horizon. The trip had been blissful, it was a nice getaway from the busy city life.

Once back in Tokyo, high school was high school and we were still teenagers of a city. We fooled around, studied the necessary and spent time with our families. But, I won’t lie, despite Tokyo being a very strict city; there were still people who managed to go their own way. Whether it was in the substances they smoked, the things they consumed or where they shop-lifted… It was hard not to fall into temptation. Thankfully, my parents had insisted on our education about all of these things and I knew better than to fall into the trap of being under the influence of others. So I did accompany them but nevertheless, I managed not to make my own attempts. I had stolen in the past though, I remember my first steal to have been a glue stick that I had placed in the pencil case that my grandmother had bought me for the back to school when I was about six years old. She had given me such a moral back then already that I hadn’t tried to do anything more. But then, I did steal a few things here and there just for the thrill of it as I grew into teenage hood; it made me feel cool; like a little rebel in a well-put family. It was a strange phase, that one. It was as if I was angry at my parents for being the way we were as a family, so perfect and happy. We had no major problems whatsoever and everything always went well. Until then, I had almost felt as if I was the ‘faller’ of the family. The misfit, the outcast; there were many expressions that went through my mind. Now that I look back, it was dumb of me but what did I know. Perhaps it was a certain pressure that I felt from my parents to be a great child, maybe it was the pressure I felt from the friends I needed to be approved by. Or was it my hormonal development? Maybe even, it was the wound I still hadn’t healed from my mistaken pathway in search of love. I had no clue back then.

After the summer of twenty-eighteen, Colette and Maelle had moved back to France and it was the year of the baccalaureate; I felt like I had ran right onto a wall. I came back with a new outlook, the atmosphere had changed. Everyone was stressed and wanting to be the best for the higher education applications. Teachers were putting pressure on us and things were getting serious. I was putting pressure on myself too as I wanted to become the good student I had once been back in Thailand, I remembered how studious I had been back then, which was a rhythm I had lost here and it wasn’t the time to do so. So, I started remembering all the good advice I had been given from my friends and teachers back in Thailand, I started to look at videos and articles on how to be a good student as well as how to study effectively and I applied most of the tricks. I had limited my nights or hangouts with friends on weekends and had dedicated most of my time and energy on studies, sports and family time. I did my best to fill the university applications but I felt a little unsure when it came to choosing what I was going to study and choose as a career path. Initially my dream had been, like many children, to change the world and make it a better place, and I knew that it was the government and politicians’s roles to ensure a well-functioning society. I wanted to become a diplomat, but I had soon given that up when I discovered the world of politics by taking political sciences as an option in my baccalaureate exam. I had also gotten refused at the French school of Sciences Po [55]. So, my mother and I had reflected on what else could suit me. I was passionate about art, music, literature and my dream was to study back in London. Despite getting into UCL, King’s College, Kent and SOAS; we hadn’t gotten accepted for the European fees as we had spent too much time abroad and therefore didn’t want to pay the international fees which were way too high. So we looked and looked, and since I knew I wanted to study in English, my mother searched for alternatives and stumbled upon The Netherlands. We had my childhood friend’s father who was Dutch and one of my mother’s colleagues who had recommended the Netherlands as a great place for universities. So we looked in the top hundred rankings of universities worldwide and found the University of Groningen. There was a bachelor in arts, culture and media which sounded very attractive and I applied to it. I was so stressed at the time and, I tended to be a little uneasy which was tough for my family to handle as I was quite emotionally unstable. I would cry quite often and could hardly find the words to explain myself and my reasons. But then, Christmas soon came around; and Christmas was always a period that filled one with love and joy.

We had decided to spend that Christmas back in Thailand, Ali and I desperately wanted to see our friends and my mother was missing the warm weather. So we flew to Thailand and there, everything changed. I felt relaxed again, I took time to myself, reading books and spending time with people I loved. The reunion with my friends had been heart-warming. It was as if we had never left one another. We had our jokes and our memories but we had different mentalities now. We were growing into adults with career goals. I saw Sofia, Suri and Subhi. They were my three rays of sunshine here in Pattaya. Subhi, she was a golden hearted girl. She had always been there for me when I had needed her, she is kind and funny. She always knew how to bring a smile to people’s faces. She is intelligent and we always have the most interesting talks. She is someone I look up to and she has taught me so much. She has a way with words and a contagious smile that makes you love her more and more each time. There was Yunseo, Alex, Mark, James, Kaiji and then, there was Tim.

Timoté Chanut is a French boy I had met in middle school. He was new that year and my home room teacher, Ms. Jones had assigned me as his ‘buddy’ to help him out and make him feel integrated. He didn’t speak English fluently just yet so it was easy for him to feel out of place.

It was the start of the year’s assembly, he was sitting next to other newbies but there was an empty spot on his left. I warned my friends and left to go and sit next to him. I introduced myself in French and I could see he was a little tense. I was scared to have surprised him because of the way I looked. Some kids weren’t very discrete when it came to my hair. It had made some children cry sometimes, it was always something I felt a little nervous about when I introduced myself to someone new.

So I guess my hair hadn’t been too much of a burden because we continued talking every now and then ever since. We soon enjoyed having our daily little talks and made the most of our language advantage. We could tell each other anything we wanted about everything. No one could ever have a clue. We ended up meeting at break times under a red flaming tree at the end of the football pitch at the backside of the campus. We talked about boys and girls and life and they were always good talks. We understood one another.

Years later, we had no idea we were to meet here and now. It had struck me to see the man he had grown into. He no longer was the boy I had once known.

We glanced at each other that very first night and I felt some kind of indescribable feeling. All our childhood memories flashed through my mind. We greeted one another in the most natural way but I was nervous. Throughout that first night, we didn’t really get the occasion to talk much as we were surrounded by our little crowd of friends. But as we went out to a club and all started to drink; the next thing I knew was that we were dancing chest to chest. I felt the rhythm of the music mixed with the alcohol flowing through my blood, I was feeling his breaths near my ear. I was truly enjoying the night and where it was going. We would stare at each other as we had taken over the dance floor. We were deep in the moment and no one could take it way from us.

But then, I had brought Ali along and she, introverted as she is wanted to go home desperately after what had been can hour of dancing. So I heard her call and left. Just like that. Like a ‘thief’ Tim later told me. I looked back once more at him as I left the room.

He looked handsomely clueless under the dance-floor’s spotlight.

The next day we met up altogether again to go sailing at a sailing club called The Varuna Yacht Club. Alex, one of Tim’s closest friends, is a sailing instructor so we rented three Hobie Cat sailboats and sailed out to Ko Lan a small island just off the coast of Pattaya. It was lovely, we set sail with a bunch of other people that Alex knew from the club and spent the afternoon at the beach. We walked around, fooled around too. And as we were leaving, Tim and Alex took me on their boat this time. I remember looking at them both, good old friends meeting again after a long time of being apart. They looked happy and at the same time they looked tense from all the things we had to go through by growing up into the adults we were becoming. Alex looked fierce as he was sailing. He is a brave man. Tim was daydreaming like he used to do often at the time. He looked good under the afternoon sky, it was almost time for the sunset. My favourite part of the day. When we arrived back to the shore, the clouds were pink and the atmosphere looked heavenly. I joined Tim by the club’s pool, he was daydreaming as he was staring out to the horizon. I slowly stopped closer to him and we started talking. We were feeling grateful for this life we got to experience. For this landscape we got to see. And another beautiful day had gone by. As I headed home that night, I felt some sort of dizziness. I felt light-headed. I thought of Tim and I was trying to figure out what could be going through that little mind of his. I fell asleep with the image of him staring out to the horizon in my head.

It was my last day in Pattaya that day, as we were going to leave and spend New Year’s as a family in Ko Kut (another island in Eastern Thailand). So we organised one last lunch altogether at a nice hotel by the beach called U Pattaya. We had a big table with the beachfront and we were all laughing and having fun. We had gone upstairs in the hotel’s wedding hall and played pretend. It was all too funny to think it was going to become a reality. What a nice age we had.

So we ended our lunch and made our farewells. And then, an idea occurred to me, I texted Tim about making one last party that night, but turns out that Tim had other plans. Mister wanted a party of two that night. Wild and excited as I was from the messages he was sending me, I took the opportunity and sneaked out at night to go find him in a hotel room in the centre of Pattaya. I had planned everything, a little miscalculated some parts but I had gotten what I wanted. I had managed to meet him at the hotel that night. We spent the evening swimming in the pool and talking about life and the next thing we knew was that we were in the bedroom. I had been nervous and shy but there was something about the way he approached me, the way he spoke to me and the way he touched me that soothed me. I let myself get carried by his moves and his affection. It was about time to break down the walls I had built since my first heartbreak. It was a night that had felt like a dream that I never wanted to wake up from. It had felt like magic. But then struck six am and I had to get back home before my parents would wake. So I left him there sleeping in the hotel bed we had spent an unforgettable night in. And that was it. I had fallen for him.

We didn’t get the chance to see each other again after that night, but we promised each other we would try. We kept texting and calling throughout the month and then came the New Year’s Eve, I flew back to Tokyo and he flew back to France. There was no way we could make it work. We were only seventeen. But then, I had made my parents promise that if I got the highest honours at my baccalaureate, I would be able to go back to Mexico to visit my childhood friends. So, from that day on, I set myself the undeniable need to achieve that goal. No matter what. And then, my mother, after listening to the story, told me how Mexico could be the opportunity for Tim and I to meet again. She was right and he agreed as soon as I told him about it.

Back in Tokyo, I started to schedule everything and organised myself to make sure I could finish studying each syllabus and subject before the final exam. I read the teachers feedbacks and did past papers ad practice tests to make sure I had understood what was expected of me. I got maths tutors that had me crying to finish the exercises and I did as much as I could until the dates finally arrived. I had counted the days and I was ready. But then my parents announced that my father had once more received a new job offer as the Regional Operation Thermal Quality Director of North America and that they were going to move to Michigan. And I was worried sick for Ali. They forbade me from telling her the news as she was going through her IGCSEs and they feared it could impact her success. So I had to keep quiet but I hated it. Eventually they announced it to her and it turned out that, despite her being sad about her friends like we always were; she was excited about moving to the USA.

The exams done, my family being a little nervous and tired of all the pressure I had set myself that was externally more and more visible, were happy with me. I didn’t really wait until the results came out and I didn’t even attend the award ceremony. Off I was on the plane ride to Paris where I was to meet Tim. Six months had gone by in which we would send each other texts, called every so often, and sent each other recordings of our guitar and piano playing. It really helped us to keep in touch. Music is truly one humanity’s greatest gifts.

As I waited for his arrival at our departure gate after all these months of planing and excitement of what was coming, I felt nervous. Six months had gone by and we were going on a trip, just the two of us oceans away from our families and home. I felt insecure and a little confused, but then I looked at our conversations and pictures and it made sense. Something, whatever it was, had brought us here, back together.

As I searched through the crowd, I saw his face in the distance. He looked better than I had remembered. Six months had felt like forever and my memories of him, and his being had started to fade. But there he was, the daydreamer that had given me something I had never gotten from anyone else before. Something so soothing that I had craved those endless months. He approached me, slowly and uncertainly. But as soon as we hugged, I felt it. That feeling of safety, of belonging; I felt at home. We spoke and we hugged and we kissed. We got on the plane and we couldn’t help but hold each other close through the whole journey. We listened to music, we watched movies and we slept. The plane ride had been the most comfortable plane ride I had ever gone on. And there we were, together, in Mexico City. I can’t explain how full my heart felt. High school was done, I had been accepted in the University of Groningen and I was with my favourite boy in one of the places that had struck my heart as a child. We had been hosted by my neighbours who had moved into the house we used to live in with my family back in the days. It was wonderful. Alejo and Belen had been so kind to us, the treated us like kings and their kids had grown into handsome boys. I was filled with joy. They are a gorgeous family. I saw all of my old friends and we visited the city all over again, Alejo even took us paragliding in Valle del Bravo, it was my first time flying like that. High up in the sky, free as a bird. It was a remarkable experience. Tim’s presence brought even more warmth to the place. We talked about life and we had the kinds of conversations I had always dreamt of sharing with someone else. He fit right into my life and I wondered why I hadn’t realised it before. My mother had pointed him out several times before, but I had been naïve. She had been right all along.

So we had two wonderful weeks spent in Mexico, partying, discovering and enjoying ourselves, the amazing places we went to and the culture. We took home with us indelible memories. We made an album with film pictures of the trip that we look back on from time to time and marvel at. I had loved it all.

Coming back to France with my parents was a little difficult at first, I missed him instantly and I couldn’t share exactly how I had felt throughout the trip. I was back to being a little nervous about what was to come next after having spent such good time in a heavenly place with wonderful people. I was also soon to turn eighteen and I wasn’t ready to leave the nest just yet. As we went to Groningen to find my accommodation and get me familiar with the city, everything got so real too quick. It struck me a little but not enough to truly realise that it was actually happening. We spent a week there without having planned anything at all really. We just went to as many real estate agencies as we could and on the third day, we had found a nice studio right in the city centre which was quite expensive but affordable. It was perfect for me. All I had needed to do was to visit it with the agent and send a motivation letter to the tenant. There were four other people on it but I got a call the next day saying I had gotten it! I was beyond excited to start my little student life here in the Netherlands. I loved it already.

I had also encountered very amicable alumni which was a relief. I had no idea what an expatriation by myself was going to be like and I had never lived by myself either. But I felt strong enough to do it, I felt like it was a fresh new start that couldn’t do me any harm. Knowing that my parents were going to move to the USA wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts though, I was worried about Ali as well, she was more difficult when it came to moving and she had also grown into a fragile age. But they all reassured me and my parents had promised Ali they would get a dog so she wouldn’t feel like an only child. She was very excited about her new life in the US as well, so it reassured me.

Everything was changing but everything was heading towards new adventures. Were we ready? Who knows, no one is ever ready for whatever life will bring next, but we wanted to live it all; always.

And then, too soon came the third of August and I had turned eighteen. We were in the South of France reunited with a family that is one of my parents closest friends who have a gorgeous chalet in Chorges. We had spent a week or so going swimming in the lake, trekking around the mountains surrounded by nature. It felt good to us all to be reunited in such a wonderful place. That day, my father had decided to go picnic by a river in Châtillon-En-Diois and we celebrated with music at night. It had been such a lovely time; I guess it was time to become an adult after all.

And like every year, I cried as I blew the candles of my cake. It was just symbolic, the melancholic tears of the end of another chapter of my precious life.

Next Chapter: Footnotes