October 9, 2017

I have been angry.

I have been angry with how I was treated by my first host family and instead of focusing on how I can heal on my own, I have wanted to detail everything that happened to me and keep it as part of my memory instead of letting it be a part of my history that I can learn from and move on from. I finally did that this summer when I went back to France. I took a day to go back to Vernon so I could forgive and move on with my life. I wanted to let go of everything so that France became a refuge again.

I remember walking from the train station to their house. Even though I hadn’t walked that route for over a year, I still remembered it perfectly. I passed the places I used to frequent, and got sad when I saw that my favorite coffee shop had become a shoe store. I felt so scared walking down the street to my old house, worried that one of the neighbors would see me and wonder what I was doing back in Vernon. I didn’t see any neighbors, but I stood in front of my house, thinking about everything I did in that house, everything that I experienced.

And I started crying. I was suddenly grateful for everything that had happened. I didn’t feel any anger toward my host parents, though I had been angry ever since I left. I wanted them to feel like they had made me feel. I wanted them to hate themselves for what they did. And a lot of that came back to me and it was all I could focus on when I talked about France. I would start things with, “Yeah, my second family was incredible, BUT MY FIRST FAMILY WAS A NIGHTMARE.”

I let it hang on me for a long time. My parents kept telling me to let it go. I never wanted to go back to Vernon if I could help it. How could I face a town where so many bad things had happened? It wasn’t fair that I didn’t see the town for what it is. Vernon is a lovely place that has some really incredible people. I just got the short end of the stick when I was there and instead of making the best of a bad situation, I let everything go and never saw what I had originally loved about Vernon when I was finally far away. I let what happened taint my view of a really cool place.

When I finally had the courage to ring the doorbell, I was afraid that Armelle would open the window on the third floor and yell down to ask who it was. And if I responded that it was me, I was afraid that she would tell me that I was an evil person who shouldn’t have come back and then slam the window shut without any other explanation. That didn’t happen.

I hoped that she would come down to the gate and invite me in to talk about what happened and how both of us could have handled the situation better, then tell me all was forgiven and introduce me to her new baby, who I learned about, just as I was leaving. That didn’t happen either.

Instead, the house stayed silent, and I looked up at the window where my room had been and I cried. And I forgave. I forgave Armelle and Olivier for treating me like a servant. I forgave them for the burns and the way they treated me after that. I forgave myself for leaving the way I did. And I know that’s not a cure-all and that I still have to work to figure out how to really turn France back into a refuge, but I took the first step. And I am proud of myself for doing at least that.