FOUND: My old home and school in France

This is going to be quite a long post so you probably won't read it all, but it's ok because this post is more for me than for anyone... I just wanted to share this moment with y'all.

Today was a surprisingly really emotional day for me. My cousin's fiancee took me to my old house by scooter since it's kind of far away from the city and taking a car would've taken forever. We got to my city, St. Brice Sous Forêt, but I coudn't remember how to get to my house from the freeway. Everything looked somewhat familiar, like after waking up from a dream and you can't remember what it was about.

I got worried. We're not going to find my house.. I can't remember where it is. I was praying to God that by some miracle, a map of my house would just appear in my head and I'd remember. Better... we found the post office!! THEY would know, right??.... So I walked in with my biggest smile so they'd be extra nice to me (which they were), and started telling them my life story so they'd feel extra compelled to help me. I said, "Please, I'm trying to find an old house of mine, I haven't been here for 13 years and all I know is my street address but no cross sections. 1 Allée Chanteclair." I didn't even need to say all that, she pointed me towards the right direction.. the street was just around the corner.

We made a left out of the parking lot and I immediately recognized the street. My school was on the right and on the left side was the gym where we'd all play. Go further down a little bit and there.. there it was... my beautiful house. As we got closer, tears started welling up in my eyes.

I was surprised at how little my house was. I always thought it was SO huge since it was the biggest in the neighborhood.  I still love it just as much. One day I'll buy it back.. one day.

My parents built this wall

Our backyard used to be full of roses and that ugly, metal gate used to be a beautiful, wooden fence. That little roof on the side of the house was built by my parents and was used to house our Toyota Previa, which we brought to Cali.

I took my first baby steps on that ground. The window on the top right was my bedroom and the top left window was my parent's bedroom. The bottom was the living and dining room. 

And I couldn't stop crying. As soon as my cousin's fiancee stopped the scooter so I could get out, I couldn't stop the tears from flowing. I don't know why. I just had so many memories and emotions rushing through me. All the little things, all the big things. It's been 13 years since I've been back to my old house. I've been back to France shorter than that but never found someone to take me to my old house. Maybe I was crying because someone else was living in MY house. This was, no, this IS my house and someone else is in it. I heard kids in the attic and I wanted to go inside so bad!! But I stopped myself, I really wanted to originally, but with all my emotions taking me by surprise, I think me crying and trying to ask if I could go in would've scared them. Click here for the video of my house.

I walked around the neighborhood and everything looked the same. Some of my neighbors were still there because I recognized their trucks but didn't dare ask if they remembered me. I doubted it.

This little road led to the picture below, where I'd always ride my bike. Sometimes, all of the neighbors would get together in this little square and BBQ.

After all that, I decided to go to my old school. Well.... schoolS technically because one was from kindergarten until a certain grade (can't remember) and then after you'd go right next door to the other school, which I went to until 3rd grade then moved to America.

This was the kindergarten until whatever grade school. Ecole Jean Charron.

I don't remember that thing in the middle to play. Whar I do remember is that when it used to rain, a HUGE puddle would be in the middle of the playground so we'd always jump with our rainboots and then take our wet socks off in class and put them on the heater. Rainy days at school were the best!

So up there on the fence is actually where my 2nd school is, and this isn't really a wall since  kids on the other side would be on the level of the fence. I remember being little and seeing all the big kids up there!

And as I started walking towards my other school, all the memories came back to me as if it was yesterday. I began to realize how BIG things seemed to me because (duh) I was so little, but seeing things now.. they're so small!

My friends and I used to climb this tree in the mornings before school started. It used to be MUCH leafier and we'd always get dirty getting past the leaves to get to the thick branches. We'd climb all the way up and then climb back down another way and you'd have to take this big jump to get down so it was always this high of jumping and hitting the ground from the high branches.

This is the fence to my 2nd school. I remember one day, there was a really bad storm--crazy wind and rain. My friends and I were walking together and the wind was SOOO strong, it was basically blowing us back every time we walked forward. So one of us grabbed the fence and we grabbed each other's hands, forming a chain, and slowly walked towards the entrance of the school. We were so scared but we were laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of it all haha.

The entrance was open and there was a maintenance man painting the gate so I asked him if I could go in to take pictures. He didn't speak French well but he thought I was a journalist and let me go in. I started feeling tears in my eyes again. This was the last school I went to before leaving France. I made my last batch of friends here. As I was taking pictures and reliving my memories, I saw 2 teachers smoking outside and they looked at me funny so I turned back to the maintenance man and he said to ask them if I could keep walking around.

They approached me and I felt tears in my eyes still. I thought to myself, "Crap!! I can't tell them what I'm doing here without crying. Stop it, Lydie. Stop it!!" But as soon as I opened my mouth, I began crying. I told them that I moved to America but went to school here 13 years ago and wanted to take pictures (all while apologizing profusely for my tears). They were so kind and 1 of them actually was a teacher while I was there but I didn't recognize his name. He asked for other teachers' names but I couldn't remember. He started listing them out and I remembered some of them! They were really nice and told me to keep taking pictures.

Ecole Jean de la Fontaine

These are the girls' bathrooms. Here's a little fact, I used to pee my pants a lot as a little girl and I'd never be able to make it to these bathrooms on time haha. And remember the little fence I mentioned from before that was connected to the other school, this is it.

See? It looks down at the little kids. When I was bigger, we'd use to make fun of the little kids for not going to our school haha.

These rocks are along the school and we'd always play marbles on them  and try to get them into the little holes. I was pretty bomb I must say and won a lot of other kids' marbles.

I started taking pictures of inside the classroom from the window when the teacher came back out and asked if I wanted to go inside. I was SO happy and immediately said yes!

They were having a teacher's meeting since school was starting next week and I guess he had told them my sob story cause when I walked in, they all smiled at me and asked which teachers I had. Another teacher had also been there for 13 years but I didn't recognize her face. Her name was familiar but I don't think I ever had her. They let me wander around and I went inside my old classes.

Used to hang my little coat and bag pack on this!

This was my very last classroom in France. I remember the blackboard and room being SO much bigger than this! On my last day of school before going to America, I walked in and my classmates had drawn a huge goodbye sign on the blackboard to surprise me. They also made drawings for me and written me letters. It was such an awesome, yet sad, day. Who knew I'd be where I am now?

We'd wash our hands here, although the sinks were a lot lower then, they did some construction.

Then, after getting our hands checked by the teacher to make sure they were clean, we'd walk from the left side of the picture (which was the school) to the cafeteria. I always remembered the walk being really long, guess it wasn't..

Only 4th graders and others of higher grade could go up these stairs to their classrooms. I remember watching the big kids going up the stairs after recess and being in awe of them, wondering what was up there! When our teacher was sick one day, we received homework and were spread out to go to different classrooms up these stairs and just sit in the back to do them. It was SOOO COOL!!!!

I can't believe all that's happened to me since then. The person that I've grown up to be. It was really nice being able to go down memory lane and see my old home and school. One of my life goals is to eventually buy back my old house and seeing it just makes me want it THAT much more.