Not again...

Oh dear. It's happening again. It is the time of year we look forward to, but dread the most at the same time. We can't wait for summer to finally hit Paris, to see the sun and start wearing skirts and sandals. The long holidays are on our door step and the end-of-school-year excitement is pulpable in the air.

If only, there wasn't that little hitch called farewells. We are busy with activities, performances, sleepovers, goodbye breakfasts and parting dinners. We skip from one emotion to the next. From happy to sad, from abandoned to cherished, from supported to betrayed. It's a roller coaster.

I know how hard it is to leave behind your life - along with your friends - but you have a new adventure waiting for you the other end. Of course, you'll feel lost and frustrated at moments but you'll be so busy carving a new space for yourself and putting so much effort into making the new move work (for your kids sake first and foremost, since the hubbies have their work cut out for them upon arrival at their new job) that before you know it, you'll have created a new routine and even made a friend or two along the way.

For those of us staying behind, you leave a gaping hole. We pass by your house and know you aren't there any longer, we hop on the metro and remember this used to be your metro station, we see a Velib car and it makes us smile, we walk through the bois de Boulogne and get lost in memories of you, we step into the boulangerie and know exactly what you would have ordered, we see a colour and think of you, we know which brand of macaron was your favourite. The emptiness is overwhelming sometimes and we try to distract ourselves using our powers of reasoning but the heart does not negotiate.

So amidst, laughter and tears, I bid you farewell and promise I will be standing under the Eiffel Tower with a box of macarons waiting for you to come fill that hole in my heart.