Lord help me, but as time goes on, I'm slowly turning into my mother. I see it in the little ways - from my obsessive picture taking of the same thing (me: the eiffel tower, her: fall foliage). I can still hear myself as a child saying "But mom - the leaves change color every year. You have albums and albums of the exact same pictures!"

Or in the way that I have friends and acquaintances all over France, Europe & the US. And in the way that I make an effort to cultivate and keep those friendships. It used to drive me crazy as a child that no matter where we went, she always ran into someone she knew - which for me, meant standing there and having to be patient while she chatted. But now I find myself doing the same - making connections, bringing people together.

Funnily enough, my mother always told me my name meant "patience", something I was often in short supply of until moving to France. Though google disagrees and says it means "listener" in Aramaic.

I suppose it's inevitable that we all end up in some way like our mothers (or fathers) - it's just not something I ever pictured myself doing. My mother felt like she'd had a very unfair childhood growing up as the oldest child of an immigrant family, and in many ways, I paid for that. She was often selfish and she was a workaholic. She was very hard on me - pushing me to constantly do more and do better. I never got pocket money or an allowance from her, I was always told that if I wanted money, I had to earn it myself. So I started working from a very early age - at 12 - in order to have some financial freedom. To be able to buy clothes and cassette tapes like my friends. The same party line continued on when I went to college and I worked 30-40 hours per week to pay my way through school. Not that I'm complaining here - I absolutely loved the jobs I had in college and wouldn't have traded them for the world. And it made me self-sufficient. Independent. Able to take care of myself. I couldn't really say the same for my college roommate, who, as lovely as she was, seemed to think that money only came from the ATM.

But all of this meant that I resented my mother for a good portion of my youth - she was so tough on me and so easy on my brother. My father was my refuge, the one who always comforted and encouraged me - which was why it was even doubly harder for me when he passed away. It was often an "us against them" mentality, and I had lost my "us".

I don't know what's made me think about all this lately - maybe watching MJ's poor children having to deal with the death of their father in the public eye. Maybe my impending trip to the US, in which I know I'll be spending time a lot of time with her. And the thing is, since my father died, she's changed. Softened with time. Regrets that we don't have that typical mother/daughter relationship. It's so strange now for me to see her almost try to buy my love, and it's almost laughable to hear her offer to buy me a plane ticket home after so many years of extreme tight-fistedness.

Part of time thinks it's too late to change - almost 30 years of interactions can be a hard habit to break. But part of me thinks we have to - she's my only remaining parent. Many people out there no longer have that, including some of you reading this. And because of you, I think of what will happen when she's gone. I'm so far away and I don't want to have any regrets.

So this time around, I'm vowng to try to be more open. More patient. To talk more about my life. To appreciate what I can learn from her. And to accept her as she is.

As far as the after-care goes, I've got these über-sexy "coques" to wear while I sleep:
Anyone else notice their eerie resemblance to a nut cup?Ha!

Besides having to tape those to my face every night for a week, I've got eye drops to put in regularly for the first ten days, I can't swim for a month and no contact sports for the first month either. I can however go to the gym and do my normal work-out.

And this is really vain, but I'm going to be honest here and say the hardest thing for me is going to be the "no make-up for ten days" rule - not that I wear a ton of make-up or anything, but I have really light eyes and light eyelashes so I tend to look extremely young without mascara and eye shadow. We're talking barely legal, especially if I have my hair pulled back. Luckily I'm supposed to wear sunglasses almost constantly as well, so I can just hide behind those... :)

Happy Independance Day (to my eyes)

So, I've got big news for those of you not on Facebook - Thursday afternoon at 5:30pm, I finally got LASIK eye surgery!

Contrary to last year, going up to the surgery I wasn't feeling nervous at all. I felt very calm and zen about the whole thing and didn't have any trouble falling asleep the night before. Once at the clinic, they did some last minute eye exams and then walked me through the procedure. After the exams, I sat in a darkened room for about 20 minutes while they prepared the machines, and then it was time to go. I still felt calm going in - and only had one minor moment of panic when the laser was actually coming down to cut the corneal flap. Just a brief "WTF are you doing?? A laser is about to cut your eye in a foreign country, are you insane?!?" And then it passed and it was all over before I knew it. They say it only takes 15 minutes from start to finish.

After that, I sat in the darkened room again and they gave me juice and cookies. The following patient was brought in and I chatted with him a bit. He asked if I was in pain, and I said no - and then I asked if he was nervous, and he said "Not really, I sort of feel like I felt before passing the Bac". Once he was brought into the operating room, I was able to go out and sit in the waiting room with Crystal, who was kind enough to accompany me to the clinic. Once his surgery was done, the surgeon came back to take a quick look at my eyes and then off we went. It's a good thing I was able to see fairly well (it was like opening my eyes underneath the water), because Crystal started leading me the wrong way home. ;)

There were about two hours afterward where it was sort of uncomfortable, but by the time I went to bed it had passed and I was already starting to see clearer. I woke up this morning and automatically reached for my glasses when all of the sudden I realized that I didn't need them! It was truly a bizarre feeling to be able to see straightaway after a lifetime of having to wear glasses or contacts. I immediately got up and looked out the window at the Eiffel tower, just to see exactly how far I could see.

As the morning went on, my vision kept getting better and better and now, a day and a half after the surgery, I'd say my vision is at about 95%. I still have trouble reading really fine print, especially with my left eye, but when I went for my follow-up visit yesterday, the doctor said things looked good and that my vision should continue to improve as my eyes heal.

As for the clinic itself, I chose it for several reasons - it was within walking distance of chez moi, I immediately got a good vibe from the surgeon and his staff, and the clinic looked extremely clean and professional (à l'américaine). I also really liked how willing they were to answer my questions - which isn't often the case with French doctors. I'm someone who likes to know what is going on and why, and they were very patient and willing to walk me through exactly what they were doing. If anyone is interested in getting their info, just let me know - the clinic is located in the 6th, near metro Vavin.

And here's a video they did to explain how the procedure works - it shows pretty much exactly what it was like for me. For the non-French speakers, the text is in French, but you should still be able to follow it:

In just a few minutes, I'll be leaving for an appointment at a local Eye clinic. I'm meeting with a surgeon to get more information about LASIK vision correction. Those of you who followed my old blog will remember that I had already scheduled the procedure once for last June, but then I ended up canceling it because I was worried about going through the operation alone. (I had images of being alone in my tiny chambre de bonne and having something go horribly wrong and no one to call).

A year later though, I'm feeling much more comfortable in my surroundings and I'm ready to start the process again. I'm planning on visiting at least two different clinics, to see which one I get a better feel from, but I've got high hopes for my appointment today. It's a clinic that my original surgeon has ties with, and they use the latest laser technology. They also happen to be just a five minute walk from where I live, which is reassuring in the case of complications.

I'm sure I'll have a bit of sticker shock since it's Paris, but hey - your eyes aren't really something you want to go the cheap/discount route on.