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The Trip To Paris That Woke Up My Inner Child

Feb 17
3 min read

The Trip To Paris That Woke Up My Inner Child

It was the bicycles’ fault.

My best friend and I travel all over the place, we are both free spirits… around 2008 we were both going through some issues, some life issues and we decided to take a break and go to Paris.

I was to say the least, overwhelmed, it had all caught up to me. Too much on my plate, for the first time I was responsible for everything in my life, and it felt really heavy. Too many details. Too many dreaded responsibilities buzzing in my head.

We arrive in Paris, settle down in the hotel and she tells me, tomorrow let’s rent some bicycles and discover Paris like Parisians, not tourist! My whole body froze…Paris felt big, busy, demanding, the levels of resistance coming out from everywhere… What? No!!! I am too old for this; I can’t remember the last time I rode a bike (?!) Have you seen how Parisians drive? We are going to get killed!!!! Leticia with her gift for gentle insistence (she always get her way LOL) She looked at me and said It will be fun, you’ll see… after continuing a bit more my resistance, a voice in my head said, you don’t want to be that travel companion, the one who says no to joy before it even has a chance to unfold. you can’t be that negative buddy that says no and sours the trip, so, ever reluctantly, I told her that I would give it a try for her sake.

That yes changed everything.

Half-heartedly I went with her next morning to pick up the bicycle, as we drove of the store, down a hill the breeze in my face, the speed going downhill and was taken over by an overjoy, a exerting happiness… I started screaming at the top of my lungs… This is THE BEST IDEA you’ve ever had!!!!

My body remembered something I had forgotten. We weren’t tourists anymore. We were just two girls riding through Paris.

Something had cracked open. The city softened. The noise became movement. We pedaled through streets that didn’t ask us to rush. We laughed. We stopped when we felt like it. Eventually, we found ourselves near the Louvre, laying on the grass, reading a magazine, doing absolutely nothing productive. No schedules. No urgency. No guilt.

I remember the feeling of presence, of being… We were kids again… unworried. Its incredible how we let freedom become so unfamiliar.

That day, my inner child came back to life. She took over… we did everything for 10 days in those bicycles, we went to restaurants and had drinks with friends, drove tipsy back to the hotel… the Hotel stored our bicycles in the suitcase room, they were amazing, Leticia's sister and her cousin came to share with us and they also resisted the bicycles until they got on them… I remember having to go around the Arch of Triumph (a 5 lanes roundabouts) listening to the Paris sirens that are a staple of Parisean life and thinking the surely Leticia had been ran over… (while she was thinking the same thing… LOL

10 days… 10 amazing days and the incredible thing was that life was waiting for me when I returned home, nothing had fallen apart. The world hadn’t collapsed in my absence. All the things I thought required my constant vigilance were still there, intact. The only thing that had changed was me.

I came back lighter, reconnected with what is important, with life. I was clearer. Empowered in a way that didn’t come from effort, but from internal strength.

Since then, I recommend cycling to everyone that could be going to cities that are mostly flat (LOL) as a way of getting back to being, to breathing, to reconnecting. No schedule, no social obligations, no have to do’s… Letting curiosity lead.

Trust that joy doesn’t dismantle responsibility, it lightens it.

Sometimes, the most important journey isn’t across continents. It’s the one back to yourself.