12:30 a.m.—Very sad tonight. I’ve said goodbye to everyone, packed my things. Today I had the opportunity to have lunch with Françoise, whom I met on the ski trip, at her parents’ home in Marsannay-la-Côte. Her house is across the street from a pretty vineyard in the beginning of the Burgundy wine district. She speaks quite good English—and we got on very well together. I spent the afternoon there, and she said, “If only I had known you earlier. I could have introduced you to some of my friends, we could have done lots of things. If only you could have stayed longer.” It made me very sad to say goodbye to someone I liked very much.
Today I took a last walk around the streets of Dijon—which I didn’t particularly like at all when I arrived. Peculiar—in the States, before I left, I was not sure whether I should go or not, and now that I’m here I’m not sure whether I should return yet. It was perhaps the money problem which decided it for me, but if it were solely the money, I would have managed, I think. It was more—the feeling that it’s time to go back and try to work, my missing people at home, my feeling that, at my age, I can’t afford to trip about much longer. But it is hurting me a lot right now to say goodbye just when I’m starting to handle the language, just when I’m starting to know the people. And the fear of going back home haunts me too—fear of final joining reality in the real “adult world,” which I suspect I’ll be doing.
—Feb. 1, 1983, Dijon, France
OtD 