There she goes again

 Dear future hubster, 

earlier this summer people kept asking me where I'm going for holidays, and depending on the level of small talk-ness of the interaction, I responded in more or less detail that I don't really have a lot of leave days because it's my first year in Belgium etc etc.

But then I started thinking and had to admit that even if I had the days, I wouldn't know what to do or where to go. In the past ten years since I left my home by the (Petrusse) river, my summer holidays consisted of The European Tour: a few weeks of couchsurfing between my friends and family, living out of a suitcase that infamously exploded in many living rooms, dropping keys in mailboxes as lousy part-time lovers, forgetting personal items of a great variety, as if wanting to leave proof that I was there. 

So when I finally acknowledged that it would not do any good to anybody if I didn't I took a week and did what I do best: got on a bunch of trains and covered a thousand kilometers or two, invited myself to family holidays and family homes; due to some plant-aunt duties I even managed to drop a key in a mailbox. And of course I forgot a few personal items here and there. 

What I also did was feeling both a sense of comfort, a familiarity, an odd freedom, gratefulness that I get to do this, and an unexpected almost-revelation. That of course I do a European Tour, this is who I am, showing up in the life of the people I love when I can.

I also learnt a few things (what good is a trip if it doesn't come with lessons?). I learnt that the European tour does get easier in the sense that it doesn't involve jet lag or overseas travel, and 1000+ km can be covered by public transport, (something I love and will never not praise). And that the European tour does not get easier in the sense that I get waves of sadness washing over me every time I leave a place and a group of people, and that I don't want to go back to doing responsible things.

And then when I did go back to doing responsible things, I learnt that there's beauty in that too. In the the back to school mood,  in the office suddenly filling up again with people old and new, and in the joy of seeing them again, the comfort of the familiar. 

Something I tend to fight, something that tends to happen anyway and then I tend to be grateful for it.

Our house

Dear future hubster, you know that I don't need much inspiration for some self-help wisdom;that I love a good anniversary, that I am a firm believer and a frequent promoter of the "without [insert experience] I wouldn't be here" notion. 

So it should be no surprise that this week I've been thinking and talking about The Big Move I made ten years ago this time. When I exchanged Lower Bonnevoie to Tshukudu roundabout, although didn't exchange polka dot heels to combat boots as some people expected. When I left a place I loved and where till present day I want to go home to, took a deep breath and a leap of faith and landed in a place I ended up loving and for which I till present day feel waves of homesickness for. 

You might say, dear future hubster, "but love you get attached to every other place and pretty much every group of people you encounter" and you wouldn't be wrong and it's also kind of the point I'm trying to make? That every leap and even every little baby step I've ever taken has in fact changed my life because duuuh that's how decisions work, and just because mine are sometimes more dramatic than whatever obscure "average" there is, doesn't meant that I'm any different - everybody's life is changing. And for somebody who always yearns for stability, I ironically and beautifully keep finding it in the aftermath of big leaps. It's like breaking myself into pieces so I can make room for new pieces and put a bigger shinier improved picture back together. The cracks sure hurt for a while (some for ever, let's be real), but look how beautiful the new version is too! 

Why am I telling you this? As a heads-up I guess, so that you know that I come with a DNA family, an Animal Party family, a 36-os szoba family, a Lost Volunteers family, a 17th Floor family, a rooftop sunset family - those are all my people and my people are everywhere. 

And now more than ever I wish they weren't so much everywhere but more where I am (and ok I haven't exactly made it easy for anybody to know where I am, much less even to know where I'm going to be), in that literal or figurative Fat Expat House. I want, and I dare to say we all need, to feel the warmth of a community around me, I want to build a polycule big enough to start a revolution, all the while wishing we didn't need a revolution and I could just make the world a better place one garlic cheese bread at the time, but here we are. In the kitchen, with the volcano glowing on the horizon.

There were moments of gold

Dear future hubster, there are moments of grace about living in Brussels. The commonplace ones when it's almost the longest day in the year and you're walking home after a dinner where the small humans of the household know you as Kata from Congo and you're walking because you missed the bus but also because it's one of those mild nights that are not exactly warm - it's still Belgium quandmeme - but it's not cold and for the first time in months you actually guessed the weather right and it's almost 11 and it's not completely dark yet and you can see the light towards the West so the opposite of where Gandalf is to be expected from and for a brief moment it makes you forget about the riot police you saw earlier and that you just foster girlfriended yet another lost boy to yet another safe harbour and you feel whatever the Greeks had among their 7 different words of love for the love of life itself and let's be real the Greeks knew what the deal was, they can claim half of polyamory and most of the illusion of democracy - that kind of grace.

In all your damaged glory

 Dear future hubster, 

In this life I have that I might have chosen or that might have chosen me, it's easy to just get in the groove of things and just do do do (as opposed to [here comes the sun] dudududu). And while it's actually kinda often kinda hard to get into the groove of adulting when it's not exciting but rather daunting or just plain boring or involves having to interact with products and services that fail to deliver on the one function they were designed for, it is even harder to let go of the pressure to at least pretend having my shit together at presenting some semblance of order. Worrying about keeping my apartment tidy and my hair neat and my syntax correct and my clothes only moderately quirky because what if I suddenly have to impress somebody or justify taking up space. 

And yes yes I know that those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind and all that jazz but first of all it's not always true and then even when it is, it's easy to forget. 

But then! Then come the people who don't only shrug it off and genuinely don't care about the façade but who actually are here for the mess. Because unmatching earrings are fun, because when I say "we don't do perfect around here" they feel relieved that then they don't have to do it either, because they think that messy hair is healthy and jumbled up syntax is less important than meaning, and with all that quiet, adventurous acceptance they actually say "girl, who you are will always peak through any semblance of order" and then I remember that I always have clean cups to drink coffee from and there's always room and time to air out the happy and the sad and always for the hugs,  and the way the tension leaves my body when they remind me that I can just be me and that's not just "okay" but it is a deliberate, powerful stance... if that's not love, I don't know what is. 

But it is. Love, that is. 

Make it anywhere

 Dear future hubster,

Ever since that June afternoon when that guy who knew literally nothing about me declared (not that I asked) "you're not gonna last 6 months", I've been- defiantly,  nervously, angrily - watching the calendar every time I ended up somewhere new. Why he felt the need to share his unhelpful wisdom is unclear,  and by now, frankly,  unimportant.  That I reacted with raised eyebrows on the outside and "watch me" on the inside is no surprise, and that he was wrong is a fact. And it's been nearly ten years,  I do hold on to my grudges. 

Since then I've learned that 6 months really is not a long time - I did double that in a place that genuinely made me sick (was not fun, don't try it at home). And that lasting 6 months or a year or 15 is as much a matter of the circumstances as it is a continuous and conscious effort. That there is beauty in being new in a new place, and that beauty and excitement is very much a given, and it is very much guaranteed to fade with time. And that the beauty of the no longer being new in a new place,  conversely,  is not a given. It takes a lot of work, although that work itself is often fun and exciting and rewarding.  That making it past 6 months and more actually requires more curiosity and bravery than setting up shop initially did. And that there are always people to gently guide me, to nudge me, to walk with me.

I hope that random guy in random kitchen learned something similar since; that he's offering kinder wisdom to wide-eyed newbies like I once was. Like I still am, every now and again, on arrival or 6 months later.

(I am alway telling the same story, I know: Life is hard, and it is beautiful.) 

Is love still the answer?

 Dear future hubster,

I know it's been a while. Not sure if I  have to explain why, with your being entirely a product of my imagination, I guess I also get to decide what you already know, but yeah, new country new job new life etc. Having to learn where the best/cheapest/least crowded supermarket is, and how their checkout process works, and deciding if I'm willing to put up with their less than ideal workflows. Having to learn the metro directions (why does every big city have a weird circle line that can get you to the same place in 14 or 40 minutes depending on which way you go?), and to  not rely on Google maps when it comes to the tram, and rather using the local transport system's app (I don't want to download another app, please, and don't even try with your QR code menus). Having to navigate keyboard distributions that are contradictory, while 4 languages are being spoken around me, 2 of which I speak and 2 of which I kinda understand so I can't really tune them out. Alternating (rollercoastering) between "oh this is actually interesting cool work that I am passionate about" and standard imposter syndrome routines of " how is this relevant to anything that matters, and even if it is, am I doing it right?". Taking two months to make it to a yoga class and then wanting to cry at the opening om because that's not how I'm used to doing it and there's only so many adjustments I can handle.

Having to make new friends. I don't want to do the work, I just want new friends to magically come to existence, like they actually often do in my incredibly privileged life; they just pop up and bring their magic. The magic I want and desperately need, we all do, the laughters the hugs the crys, the ice cream the coffee the fries, the music the colours the light. The simple, quiet presence, when all else fails.

Because, dear future hubster, honeybun, bebe, the world is on fire. Disasters and numbing crises one after the other on top of each other; unspeakable horrors right before our eyes. It's not often that I can't find words; nowadays, I am completely at loss. Nothing in any language I speak can do justice - justice, in particular, seems to have lost meaning. My usual way of processing things, good or bad, is talking about them, so what do I do now that the words don't come?

Jason (one of my many musician boyfriends as you know) has always said that love is still the answer, and... I don't know anymore. Maybe he's right, but... maybe we just don't know how? 

How do we love in this world?

How do we live in this world? 

We can never know what to want

 Dear future hubster,

today I am going to be one of those people I usually find annoying, saying great things about somebody who's just died, not having mentioned them or their work's impact on my life in the recent or not so recent past. And maybe I am also one of those cliché girls, swearing on a book that changed their lives.

Many books have changed my life though. Today's story is about The Unbearable Lightness of Being, of which I own multiple copies in at least two languages - I thought I'd read it in 3 but I'm not so sure anymore.

I also distributed many more during the years to people as a sort of parting gift - if you ever meet somebody who received one from me, please tell them that it means that there was a time when I felt so close to them that I wanted to let them in on a revelation; that I wanted to share with them something I thought I'd understood about life.

That revelation, understanding, interpretation, simplified to a motivational poster length because I haven't read enough Nietzsche to be more elaborate, is that there is no control group. Any decision we make is going to be the first and only of its kind, and there is no way of knowing how other decisions would have played out. The "other option" isn't actually real. 

For somebody like me, often worried to extremes about getting things wrong, this - not being able to compare possible outcomes - is unsettling. Sometimes dowright scary. I am just learning to see it as beautiful too, liberating, for the absence of the right choice also makes The Right Choice non-existent. 

Ironically,  I've been wanting to be The Right Choice for so many so often - and when I wasn't, when they made a choice that didn't include me, or couldn't make one that did because they were held down by their own what ifs, scared to choose me for fear of having to un-choose everything and everybody else, scared of throwing away the other option that might be better, well, then I gifted them a copy of this book, thinking that seeing the brutal beauty of this lack of second drafts and revisions, control groups, comparable other options, will change their lives too.