Weary

Before we went back to the US I had been feeling pretty good about my life here in Germany. Sure, I have a lot of responsibilities and, especially since I have taken on the church mission work, I have felt a bit overcommitted. But my social network here has made it a really fun place to live, and that has been my predominant feeling during our time here. During this time I have had friends move back to the US and have walked through that process with them, as they grieved over the end of their adventure in Berlin and worried that they wouldn't fit in back at home, that they would have changed too much and that it would be difficult to adjust to an "ordinary" stateside life. I worried (in advance) about my own return to the US, and even expected to feel a little bit of that culture shock myself during our Christmas visit, since it had been a year and a half since my last visit to the US.

So I was surprised at how easily I slipped into US living. Yes, we were on vacation, so it wasn't exactly normal life. But still...friendships were the same, people were the same. No daily task was a challenge. There was snow and good US food and I could buy eggnog in the grocery store and andouille sausage, two things I sorely miss, for which there is no substitute here. Far from not fitting in, it felt like home. And as far as having changed too much: I sort of felt like I have been on a long vacation. When you come back from vacation, people say "how was your trip?" and they might ask "what was your favorite part?", but they don't really want to know every detail and you don't feel the need to share every detail. In the same way, I was content to share the basics of our life here and answer questions without feeling like I needed to go on and on in order to be understood.

So it was a pleasantly easy transition, and it was over all too soon. And now I'm back here where it's rainy and grey and people don't smile at you when they pass on the sidewalk and everything is covered with graffiti and everything is urban and there are no mountains and none of my fun activities have started back up and all the tasks and problems I put off before the holidays are still here waiting for me and all I've done for the last several days is sleep at odd hours while trying to recover from jetlag and process endless mountains of laundry and I'm not feeling very happy to be here. Maybe it's the weather or the jetlag or the post-holiday blues or the lack of exercise. But I think a lot of it is the juxtaposition of that life with this one, and right now I'm not feeling so great about this one.

I feel weary. I feel tired of things being so hard. I didn't even realize how hard they were, I guess I had forgotten. But after 2 weeks in the US, where things are just...easy...I am really feeling the drawbacks of living abroad. It's not like I have had to do anything particularly hard since we have been back. It's just little things; like we want to sell our pickup truck in the USA and trying to do it while living overseas is extra complicated. We need to have the title notarized and that's an American thing, not a German thing. So one option is to make an appointment at the US consulate and spend an hour or so plus $100 or so to get something notarized there. We did that when we sold our house and it seemed overly complicated and way too expensive but it worked. But I thought there might be an easier way. I know a bunch of Americans, surely someone I know is a notary, right? I posted on Facebook in a couple of expat groups and got only one recommendation, a guy named Wolfgang. If I want to go that route, I need to steel myself to pick up the phone and call the office and attempt to somehow explain in German that I need to have my US auto title notarized (none of those are words I know). Probably best to just bite the bullet and pay through the nose at the consulate. See, things are just more complicated here.

Another example: Haley wanted to play with a friend this week. I texted her mother, who I know, but didn't receive a response until a couple of days later, at which time she told me that she was out of town but she was sure her daughter would like to play; I just needed to contact her husband. Who is German. Which requires a phone call to a German man I don't know and a stammering German conversation. I'm frustrated with myself for being afraid to speak German, but I just feel that I can't muster the energy. I would rather be antisocial than put forth the effort. Sad.

Feeling tired is a disappointment to me. I thought I was stronger than this. I thought I was adventurous, brave, capable. I thought I had things figured out here, for the most part. So it feels like a failure that right now I want to relinquish all my obligations and hide out in front of the TV with a bag of chips. Send me positive vibes, would you? I need to get my mojo back.