never never never give up.

I'm learning some things about life from the seven month old boy I babysit.

Every day I see him, we play games for a while on his mat. Then he sees a super cool toy he forgot about in the distance. He must have this toy. It is really colorful and cool and it will make him happy. 

So he reaches for it. Alas! It is too far. He flips on his tummy but still, the shiny toy is too far for his little arms. That's when he starts trying some things. He flails his arms and legs. He puts his head on the mat and squirms. He gets on all fours...and scoots backwards a little bit. 

The boy cannot crawl yet. But oh, does he try. He tries for a good five minutes before he gets frustrated and I help him. This happens every single day I see him, and I'm pretty sure it happens every single day I don't see him, too.

You and I both know that someday in the future, Marc will be able to crawl. But he doesn't know that. All he knows is that every day, he tries, and he fails miserably. Why doesn't he give up? Why didn't any of us give up trying to crawl? 

Nowadays, I get pretty frustrated if I try something every day for a few months and just continually fail. I usually just resign to saying something like "well, I guess that wasn't meant to be," and I move on to something else. In fact, I feel like that about learning French a lot. Why is it so hard for me? Why can't I speak as well as the other assistants here?  Maybe I should just do something else with my life. I should just go home, find a mediocre job that pays the bills, and just be happy that I can speak a little bit of French for when I travel. 

I went to the Préfecture (immigration office) the other day because I have a Russian friend who found she was able to take free french classes here on the D type of work visa, which is what I have. I thought it was a perfect solution...to take classes with other adult immigrants while being immersed. "I'll be fluent in no time!" I thought. Except when I got there, they lady told me that since I'm an English assistant, it's really not important that I learn French, since I'm here to speak English and I'm leaving in six months. She told me to go to the university and enroll in classes if I wanted to learn French. When I reminded her that being an assistant is a part-time job and I barely make enough money to live off of, she could only shrug. 

I waited until I got down to the street and put on my sunglasses before I started to cry. I know you're probably thinking that her turning me down for French classes is a dumb thing to cry about, but it has been a long build up. I almost never hang out with the other Americans nowadays, which means that my ability to do simple things like articulate my thoughts is severely limited. I cannot even describe to you how frustrating it is sometimes, and how much I took simple communication for granted before. More often than not, I can't get out what I want to say in French, and my English-speaking friends aren't totally fluent either, so I have to remind myself to speak slowly, use easier words, and still, sometimes I have to repeat myself three or four times.

But then, I hang out with little Marc and I think...hmm. Maybe someone is sitting back and watching me flail about and try different things, thinking "Stop worrying so much, I know that you don't know it, but you're going to crawl pretty soon. Just don't give up." 

That night, I came home and found a present on my bed. My friend Yazid, after hearing about what happened at the Préfecture somehow found a "Learn French!" program written for English speakers at the bookstore, and bought it for me. He wrote me a very sweet card and told me not to give up. At the bottom, he signed it "Your French Friend," and I laughed for the first time all day. 

That's when I promised myself I would be more like Marc.