For our 2-week break for Toussaint, I not only explored Disneyland and hiked up to Chateau Gaillard with the other Les Andelysienne English assistant Chloe and her boyfriend, but I also decided to spend a few days out in Paris with my loves Hannah, Alexis, and Lia. We got to celebrate Halloween by watching Tim Burton movies with the Swedish House at the Cite Universitaire with caramel apples and home-made gourmet Reese's that I made at home. The next day, we headed to Les Peres Populaires, where Hannah works, to have a more intimate Halloween party with friends, where we dressed up, played Set, and had a drinking game with "Je n'ai jamais" ("Never have I ever"), which ended maybe a bit after it should have ended.
- 1: Ligne de vie (Line of life)
- 2: Ligne de tête (Line of head)
- 3: Ligne de coeur (Line of heart)
- 4: Anneau de Vénus (Venus ring)
- 5: Ligne de Soleil (Line of sun)
- 6: Ligne de Mercure (Line of mercury)
- 7: Ligne de chance (Line of luck)
The day I decided that I would head back to Les Andelys, Alexis drove me on his motorcycle over to Les Peres Populaires to hang out with Hannah while she was working. I enjoyed a delicious sandwich made by Hannah herself and worked on some of my Christmas cross-stitching projects. There was a guy sitting next to me at the bar, finishing off his third cup of coffee when he said he had to go, but I could tell that he definitely wanted to linger around more. As he stood up, he asked Hannah if I was her friend (we had been speaking English to each other, so I don't think he could tell whether or not I spoke French). She said yes, and I confirmed it, and he approached me and said that he had been looking at my hands since I sat down and asked if he could look at them.
I was a understandably a bit taken aback, but when I got the thumbs up from Hannah, I knew that this guy knew what he was doing (or at least did it often enough). He started off by telling me that I've had some health problems and that when I was around 8-10 years old, I had breathing problems, which was true! I got my tonsils and adenoids taken out around 10 years old because I could never breathe through my nose. He said that water is my element (truth), and that swimming would help with my breathing issues, but that water is not where my clarity lies because water has the ability to dilute oneself (he insisted- no baths when I need to clear my mind!). For clarity, I need to go to the Earth. Which is what I've been saying all along in terms of finding myself a relationship, but I digress. He also mentioned that around age 14, I had the realisation that I didn't have to always do what everyone told me to do anymore. I was always an obedient kid, but this is where I started to follow my own path and choose what I wanted to do (this is also when I started high school and decided that I would go against my parents' wishes and take French instead of Spanish, and also when I finally came out to myself and my friends).
This is about where he pointed out that he was getting goosebumps and that he could tell from afar that I had very special and very rare hands. He pointed out my Luck line, which ran all the way from the Moon section all the way nearly up to my fingers to Saturn. He said that this was extremely rare and that he'd never seen it before, and that it's a sign of heightened intuition. It doesn't quite mean that I can read other people and objects easily, but rather that they come to me and speak to me. He said that this is especially true of people who can't always speak for themselves, like toddlers, handicapped people, and immigrants (c'mon, everyone who knows me: how true is this???), and that I can find the innate beauty in objects from one simple glance.
After pointing out his goosebumps again, he moved onto my heart line. He told me that he saw lots of "trahisons", or abandonment, in all of my past relationships. This is about where he started to cry in recounting to me how up until now, I never was able to be complete in a relationship because I lost myself in the other person. I was always giving so much of myself until there was nothing left for the other person to love (this is where I started crying, too). I let people in up until a certain extent but never let them get any further, which is why I turn the focus onto them. He reasoned that my exes were never able to love me because I was doing too much loving them (sound familiar, all of my exes?).
He did say that there was a huge shift in my life about 8 months ago (!!!) and that I am finally on my way to loving myself enough to be a full person for myself and learn to trust others enough to love all of me. He showed me that my heart line was full of lots of love and was just a pure and loving heart in love with lots of people. The amazing thing is that he pinpointed the moment where I was just getting really sick and when my ex and I broke up and I had just had enough with getting turned down for who I was; having my girlfriend and my own body turn against me was my ultimate turning point for beginning to truly get back to me as a person and figure out who it is I am and what I want and need out of life and of the people who surround me. I don't think that I've lost the caring person that I was, but I'm finding myself to be more truthful to myself and to others about what my abilities are in love and in life.
He said that all of my lines are very weak, but they're getting stronger. After turning my hands over, he said that there are equal amounts masculine and feminine in my hands, and that there is a true balance between the two. He added that my hands and body have always been strong and that my head is just trying to catch up to them, to be as strong as the rest of me.
The last thing that he said was that I have come to a point in my life where I have to decide between a boring job and something more creative and artistically pleasing. For the moment, I'm taking that to mean that I just need to find creativity and passion through teaching the kids English and finding ways to make it interesting for all of us, though he also said that I would be really good at writing kids' books. I like to think that being an ASL interpreter would give me that kind of creative artistic satisfaction, though I haven't completely put away the idea of starting my own patisserie in America one day. I feel like I'm already well on my way to feeling complete, and I still can't believe how lucky I am that an old man in a bar was able to tell me all of the things that I already knew but needed to completely acknowledge and understand in order to truly accept myself as I am and get ready for all that life has to offer me.
