This year has been pretty crazy. For one thing, I am no longer a French resident. So I guess the blog's title is now inaccurate. I may change it. If you show up after it has been change, the original title was "Avi in France".
In February, pretty much exactly for my birthday, I got my green card. Pretty exciting stuff. I also got a social security number and started looking for a job. I did some cleaning at Sean's job, Hackbright (Sean is my husband, in case I never mentioned it before. Sometimes I leave important stuff out).
In the end of May, we went to France (so I guess I was in France for part of the year) for Guillaume's wedding. Guillaume is one of my brothers, the oldest one. He's 3 years older than I am. We had a great time with him, his now wife Marie, and family. However, while Sean and I were riding the RER (Paris suburb train), I got my wallet stolen from me. It contained, among other things:
- All my money and bank cards
- Every type of ID I owned (including my green card and my passport)
- My social security card (which I was told to bring just in case for re-entering the country)
Those are the big ones, really. It also had transit passes for France and the US, a bunch of gift cards or store cards, things like that.
So we got to the airport, getting ready to check in our luggage, and when they ask for my passport, I realise what happened. That sucks.
Long story short, I sent Sean on the flight telling him I'd take the next one once I got it sorted through, then spent two weeks just trying to get out of the country, which included a bit of spending the night at the airport although I stayed with my aunt for most of that time. It was stressful and difficult (just getting out of the airport and back to Paris took a whole day: I didn't have my transit pass, money to pay fare, ID or bank card to withdraw money, or anything like that).
After I was back in the US, I applied for a replacement green card (the costs are ridiculous) and tried to figure out how I could keep looking for a job while I didn't have any green card to actually show anyone. I eventually got my (newly obtained) passport stamped, acting as a green card until I received the new one, and off I went to jobland.
I had no job perspectives for a while, then way too many at once. First I got a tutoring job, 2 days a week. Pretty good, but short hours, and while I had advertised myself as a French tutor, it was for math. It proved difficult. I started at the beginning of September and did it until December.
Then I got two job interviews almost simultaneously. One at Kmart and one at Ross. Kmart hired me during the interview so I started right away. Ross called me two weeks later to tell me I was hired if I still wanted the job. I didn't think I could successfully juggle both plus the tutoring, and it seemed shitty to leave Kmart after just 2 weeks, so I declined. That was still in the beginning of September.
And finally, in October I was contacted by a translation website, Rev.com, to become one of their translators. Coordinating an interview proved difficult but after it finally happened, I was hired right away and started working within the hour. It's a very good job where I can set my own schedule, accepting projects as they're offered to every translator with my language pair (French and English), or not accepting any projects for days if I so wish. Every project can be previewed before being accepted so you know what you're getting into.
So far I have translated birth/marriage/death certificates, school reports, diplomas, background checks, vaccination records, subtitles for a variety of videos, even an excerpt from a Master's thesis on comparative French and Italian law on the unity of art. It's giving me experience in a whole range of areas and I'm very excited about it. It's also done online, meaning I can do it from anywhere with an Internet access.
So that's it for the jobs. Right now I "only" have two left, although at some point I'll just leave Kmart altogether. I would have months ago, but... I met someone.
He's my boyfriend now, and I couldn't be happier. He's considerate, he's funny, we have a great time together and I just want to hug and kiss him all the time. He works there too, and before I dared ask him out, the reason I kept working there was the fear that once I was gone, I'd have no way to contact him anymore and we'd lose touch.
It was a lot to dump onto him, what with me being married and polyamorous, but he took it like a champ and was willing to give it a shot, and I'm so grateful for that. He's an amazing friend and a great person. I don't want to give more details about him because while everyone at work knows, he's not eager for his family to hear about it, which I can definitely understand. It's not very likely that their reaction would be enthusiastic approval rather than concern or maybe even anger. Not to mention, even without the whole polyamory thing, you don't necessarily want your parents to know you're in a relationship. I certainly didn't tell mine when I was with David, and I didn't even tell them about Ian for the first 7 months, or about Sean for the first... probably around 7 as well, actually. Although I never told them about Sean, Jacquot (my grandfather) did after I told him.
Anyway, rambling. I am a bit clumsy about this relationship because it's my first time actually dating. David always framed the relationship more as a friends with benefits kind of thing and we were never affectionate in public, nor did we really have proper dates. Ian and Sean both started long distance, meaning we either lived in separate countries, or in the exact same house/apartment, so we never really had those kind of dates either. The dates I've had with either of them involve(d) walking into the next room and going "hey, want to go to the movies/restaurant?" and then getting ready together. So I'm really figuring it as I go.
I know I enjoy waiting for him when I arrive before he does. I know I enjoy seeing him there when I arrive after he does. I know I like holding hands with our fingers interlocked, which is how the two of us do it but not the way I usually hold hands with people. I like holding him and having my face next to his neck rather than his chest. Holding him is so different from holding Sean and I love both feelings, and I'm so happy I get to experience both in my life. I like that I'm still experiencing new things with him.
So yes, I'm now in a relationship with not just one, but two amazing guys I care about very much. I honestly don't know how my new relationship is going to evolve or even if it's going to last but I'm enjoying every second and I'm so grateful everything has been going so well.
