I've expressed the requirement of you being willing to join me in my festival haze, and although I'm not even sure anymore that it has to be you, it never harms to tell you that: 1. If and when said common festival experience of ours happens, I will not look pretty. Well, I will not look pretty when it starts, and will look absolutely destroyed by the end. and 2. There will be extended periods of times when I won't be talking to you. Don't take it personally, that's just how it is.
Actually, it's rather a good thing. The less put together I dare look and the longer I can be not talkative with you, the more comfortable I feel. On the way to intimacy, I guess.
you will find out very quickly anyway, but here's an early warning for you: when I show up in your life, or anybody's life or house, even if it's only for a visit, the impact is visible immediately. My personality of a significant size manifests through exploded suitcases and growing number of bags all over the place. And sunglasses. And pens. Books. Keys.
Also, when I leave, temporarily or for good, I tend to leave traces behind. Watch out for jewelry in particular, but I've had clothes sent after me several times too.
While trying to be wise and supportive and understanding about the ups and downs of the expat life, I suddenly realized that there is one deeply intimidating field where I can't offer any advise or share experience, for I have none. I have never returned. When I go, I go somewhere else, but so far, never back.
Dear future hubster,
I had to realize and therefore I have to mention that living in the Land of Eternal Summer does not mean that one has access to long summer nights. Or to proper, long, gradual, promising but almost painfully slow sunsets.
Dear future hubster,
why didn't anybody tell me that making mistakes could be 1. so much fun and 2. so rewarding? I've been trying to avoid them all my life!
can we stop for a moment and reflect a bit on the famous notion of "if it doesn't kill you it makes me stronger"? For many of its aspects require clarification.
To begin with: nobody needs to get any stronger. We already are strong enough. Difficult situations don't make us stronger; we get through them because we have the strength We just have been fortunate not having to test just how strong we really are. What those hard times do though is to empower - they make you realize just how much you can deal with, and how. That you don't need to get that strength from somewhere - you just need to display it sometimes. Some being the key word. If you feel that you have to be strong all the time, something is seriously wrong.
Another misinterpretation is that not saying that something is hard means you are strong. It doesn't. It just means you're doing yourself a disservice. By not acknowledging the difficulty, you're making yourself feel guilty for struggling with it. By not acknowledging it to others you're setting yourself up for a permanently diffuclt condition: your handling it will be taken for granted.
Accepting and expressing that something is hard does take that strength you probably didn't know you had. It's not easy to say "it's not easy"! But it also sends a powerful message, much more so than just clenching your teeth and getting it over with. A message, loud and clear, saying: This is hard for me but I'm going to deal with it anyway. Because I have the strength in me.
(I know I know. You have a pretty damn sophisticated future wife here.)
you know I love belonging - to places as much as to people . If I was a person of bad puns, I would say, I long to belong. I find beauty in being alone together, and I will believe till the bitter end that the point of this whole journey is to be able to share it.
But sometimes, unexpectedly even for myself, I do enjoy walking alone. Not being considered as part of an item, may that be household, group of friends, relationship. I enjoy not being identified by who holds my hand, or doesn't, or used to. I do enjoy taking that country road all by myself - so when I do find my way, I know I arrived where I was meant to. To a place, once again, where I belong.
Dear future hubster,
being 32 doesn't scare or worry me, but that doesn't mean that sometimes I won't act half my age. Including, but not limited to listening to tacky britpop about imaginary relationships that I shouldn't be having, and about coming of age that I supposedly should have done already.
Dear future hubster,
it may or may not be a Nick Hornby - John Cusack influence, but my new secret wish is that somebody make a music mix "tape" for me. Personalized, way too obvious, with inside jokes and tacky references.
Dear future hubster,
you may need to work on a couple of good cover stories, because I am one of those people who do walk into doors and tables and random pieces of furniture and then end up permanently black and blue. At times, it can look suspicious. Just sayin'.
When Jaime Lannister said "things I do for love" before attempting child murder (it didn't quite work out, that's one tough family - please also see the meaning of stark in any given German(ic) dictionary), he was a bit restrictive.
It's not for love only, far from that. We go out of our ways and make significant efforts to belong somewhere. No matter how original and unique we are, there are moments when we gladly blend in and take a label. That moment, when the "them", the "you people" becomes "us" - admit it or not, it's comforting. You may still be on your own, but so are "we". Now we are on our own together.
Dear future hubster,
do you remember those weekends from your younger years when so many things happened that come Monday morning, you were actually happy to go back to school, to resume a somewhat normal life?
I says a lot about my teenage tendencies that I just had one of those.
