It's Fashion Week in Paris

I live in a very fashionable city.  It's actually fashion week so for a bit of time, I'm in the most fashionable city in the world.

I'm very removed from that industry but have a few friends who work for luxury brands and who are much more connected to that life style.  But it's Paris and it's fashion week so there are lots of fashion people in town.

I went to a party last night and met a photographic manager who's here for work.  She didn't brag about what she does for a living and when I pressed her, she said it was just a job like any other with things to do, people to deal with and lots of day to day tasks to get through.  I can understand that.

I've worked and lived abroad for many years and now I live in Paris.  I have friends back home who think my life must be exciting and chic.  Today I didn't leave the house because my son is still recovering from a bout of Scarlet Fever and he needs a full day of rest before school tomorrow.  I mopped the floor, did some laundry and cooked.  We played with trains, the doll house and painted.
It's not much different than anyone with kids on a sick and rainy Sunday.

I'm grateful to live in a place that many would dream of, just for a vacation.  Being raised in the Midwest and feeling out of place, I dreamed as a little girl of speaking french and visiting here one day.  I never dreamed I would have an opportunity to live, work and raise a child here.  That was a dream too big for a poor, immigrant minority raised in middle America.

But I studied hard, worked and saved.  I took opportunities when they came and did my best to build a life that was meaningful, for me.  I'm not motivated much by money but I love to travel, see the world, meet new people...take risks.  I stumbled into a career that fulfilled these passions and paid the bills so I stuck with it.  It wasn't my ideal job but it provided the money to do the things I really wanted to do.

I lived as an expat during the boom days in some amazing places.  I was in Venezuela just after Hugo Chavez was elected.  I was in China just before the last Olympics.  I moved to London to get some fresh air.  I finally settled in Paris because I wanted to live here and took a pay cut to do it.  Over time, as my company started feeling the pains of the global recession and things got bleak at the office, I knew it was time to do something different.

I planned to take a one year sabbatical, used my frequent flier miles to buy an around the world plane ticket and gave notice to my land lord that I'd be leaving soon.   I was going to take a year off, volunteer, travel and then come back to Paris with my job protected (the sabbatical was in my contract).

Before leaving, I needed to have a full physical and the technician recommended a pregnancy test since I was soon to have a host of vaccines to inoculate from exotic diseases.  The test came back positive.  Shit.

I had recently said my passionate goodbyes to my now ex boyfriend and he had given me a parting gift that I hadn't expected.  I was supposed to leave for Haiti in a few weeks and at that moment I was single, jobless, homeless and pregnant.

It's been nearly four years since I got the news that I was going to be a mother.  It's Sunday night (of fashion week) and I haven't showered, dressed or left the house.   I bet there are a few single moms who can relate.