I have two people whom I refer to as my French daughters.
One is a woman that I have known for several years, and with whom I've communicated repeatedly, particularly when she has been going through a stressful period, usually related to either interaction with her father or interaction with her -- I'm not sure what to call him, as he's married, and not really a 'boyfriend'. She has used the term amoureux, and I suppose that's as good as any. She gets a lot of pain and no satisfaction from the first, and a combination of pain and satisfaction from the second. She wants to leave the first (but can't, due to financial and familial issues), and knows she should leave, or at least turn down the intensity, on the second -- but she finds that very hard to do. Very hard to do.
The other daughter is a French exchange student who has been with us just about a month, and who will be with us, barring problems, until the end of May. That started out as oh, that's nine months, its a long time, and to my surprise its already eight months left, and that doesn't feel like a very long time at all. We get along very well with this person, and when she leaves, it will feel as if part of our family is leaving. Not looking forward to that.
I like both of them.
2 comments:
Lucky you to have such close international friends.
I am certainly lucky, no doubt about it. All of the French people I know -- not all *that* many; about 12, I think, in every corner of the country except the north-east - are interesting, and I am delighted to know them, even as I find that the adage about 'the french don't consider you a friend until they've known you for several years' does seem to be true. I call these people friends, but for the most part I think they just think of me as 'someone they know'.
I can live with that.
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