Its 4:30 in the morning, the day after solstice. The sun is up and the birds have been singing for over an hour. I know about when they started singing because I woke up then, checked the clock, and then stuck in my trusty earplugs. I woke after only another hour because I was having fitful dreams about arranging to meet friends at the train station. I decided that this was as good a time as any to get up and update my much-neglected blog, as well as have what could be the last quiet reflective time I will get for the next several weeks.
Today marks the beginning of the end, so to speak. Not in a negative sense, but in that we have reached a summit of our adventure and from this point it is going to be a fast, fun ride back to the Ohio Valley. We have less than 6 weeks left, which I notice is about where I left off in my blog - about six weeks after we arrived in Luneburg. In these six weeks we are having three sets of visitors, back-to-back: our friends, the Bennetts (a family of four whose two kids are the same age and good friends of A&R) for five days, a couple from Narvik, Norway (good friends we met back in our pre-children days in Indiana) for two nights, and my mother and "baby" brother for two weeks. Then, the same day the last guests depart, we depart for two weeks of travel in the UK. We return to Luneburg with just four days of scurried packing before we head back home.
So, as I sit here, poised on summit I have been reflecting on what we/I have done, didn't do, and still hope or plan to do during our time here.
I had imagined, as I frantically packed during the weeks leading up to our departure for Germany, that once I had shed myself of the obligations of my life in the US, when we were down to bare minimum possessions and basic needs, that I would have the space and time for simple persuits, all those things that, in my eveyday life I yearned to have the time to do. I brought along my baking books and various craft kits and unfinshed projects. I imagined blissful days with O making playdough and sugar cookies, exploratory walks through German neighborhoods, and interacting with local kids and moms at the playground. O would develop a German vocabulary, while I would improve mine. During naps I would persue my own interests, including writing captivating blogs for the folks back home. This was going to be different from the sabbatical in Washington state in which I languished, bored and lonely most of the time, unsure what to do with myself during the hours when both Tom and the girls had structured, purposeful activities and work and school.
However, once the initial rush and excitement of the settling-in period was over, I found myself feeling isolated and often depressed during the long days on my own with a toddler and neither time to myself nor time to talk uninterrupted with a fellow adult. Playgrounds have been empty of children during the daytime or the language barrier has been prohibitive of making new friends and I have not found many accessible mother/child play programs. There was no naptime to myself, as the girls were usually home before O went down and I was "on" right up until the last one went to bed at 10pm, after which I collapsed into bed myself. On the last several weekends, we have done a lot of touring and traveling, which means we are all together, all the time, sometimes in intense situations.
It reinforced what I have gradually grown to learn about myself. I NEED time to myself as much a I need good food: to recharge my batteries and regain perspective. This is the definition of an introvert! However, having a history of mild depression, I also need to not have so much time to myself that I begin to ruminate on negative feelings until they become over-exaggerated in my mind. Ironically, my hours with a toddler offered both constant companionship (no time to myself) and isolation (plenty of time to ruminate). I have a hard time asking for what I need, so it was a long while before I finally made some changes to restore the balance.
Fortunately, over the last few weeks, I have finally found some balance. We found a childcare center on campus where I have taken O a couple of times a week for a few hours. How I wish we has discovered this from the beginning. Even just those few hours allow me adult time and needed perspective. Tom also took the kids on his own for most of the afternoon on a Saturday and we finally went on an actual date!
I am feeling more myself, now. There are still a lot of things that I had hoped to accomplish while I was here, but if I don't, I know that we did do a lot of traveling and all of us learned more about ourselves and coped with the challenge of living in a strange land among strangers. I have hopes that I can fill in the blanks on my blog where I left readers hanging, especially before I leave Germany and the impressions and perspective fade into memory. Perhaps I need to wake up more with the birds...now and then.
No comments:
Post a Comment