Paris, in a sports car . . .

it is early morning on my last day of my first visit to Paris . . .

and I can't help but think how far I have come, not simply in miles, and how much further my family's next generation will go . . .

when I decided to come here, I wanted to "ride through Paris, in a sports car, with the wild wind in [my] hair" (I still may, I have almost a full day left)

I loved The Ballad of Lucy Jordan  when I was younger - it had all the angst a young girl wanted

BUT, I didn't quite understand why her life was dependent on her husband and children:

Her husband he's off to work
And the kids are off to school
And there were oh so many ways
For her to spend her days

She could clean the house for hours
Or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street
Screaming all the way

OR, you know, she could have taken control of her own life and booked a trip to Paris and rented a sports car, or a gigolo, or whatever she thought was missing from her life

I never dreamed, as that young girl, that I would be in Paris, or living in China, or most of the paths my life journey has taken so far

but I was fortunate enough to have a mother who taught my siblings and I (and they have passed it on to their children) that life is what YOU make it

she also taught me that being human means making mistakes, and that's ok also