Unfortunately, my thoughts and my feelings are still completely jumbled and my emotions are all over the board. Sadly, this post will also be all over the board I'm afraid but feel like I need to get it out now otherwise I never will.
Of course, without a doubt, we are all VERY excited to be heading to Seattle and not only going back to our home town but living our own home for the month. And yet I have been overwhelmed lately with feelings that I can't really place. We aren't coming home for good, it is just a visit but we are coming 'home' and yet leaving our other 'home' so it does feel a bit strange.
A few months ago my British friend, Ali, was visiting and she knew we had planned to head back to Seattle and she asked me what I was going to stock up on there that I couldn't get here. It got me thinking. What have I really missed here? Friends and family go without saying. Obviously, we have missed so many special people. We have made such great friends here. But they, in no way, replace our Seattle friends and family they are just a super nice addition. The only things I think we will bring back with us is peanut butter, band aids - they kind of suck here, and yeah, a bunch of stuff for the kids from their rooms but nothing big. Everything that I want or need, really we can get here.
I do miss my garbage disposal as they are not a thing here. I miss being able to go to the grocery store and have small talk with people around me and not feel panicked when it is my turn to check out. You would think that after a year here I would be used the the way they do grocery check out here. Nope, still stresses me out.
It is funny because other than friends and family the things I'm most looking forward to doing, seeing, experiencing while in Seattle are the things here that I have most enjoyed living without. A car, certainly excites me a bit. Not having one has been very top of the list for things I have loved about living here. Living without a car forces you to MOVE. Every single time we go anywhere it is an extra effort or more to get there. I don't think there has been a day here where we haven't walked over 10,000 steps. Even with a bus, there is walking. Now that it is good weather we seldom ride the bus. Lately I have clocked in 10-20 miles of biking per day. Partly because the weather is so nice Marty and I have been going on longer bike rides to a further away lunch destination or some other further away errand and the other part is I'm just living my normal life. We bike everywhere and while I LOVE it and it makes you interact with people and nature and it is a good decompression from one thing to the next I do think it will feel amazing to have a car for a bit. To go to the grocery store or better yet Target or Bartells - oh, yeah, I'm coming for you!!!! and walk out to my car with a cart and load my car and then drive it home. With things like a watermelon. Oh, man!! We haven't had watermelon (at least not at the house) since arriving because they are large and heavy. Buying and trekking home with a hefty watermelon is nearly impossible. So simple, so ordinary from my old life but so SO luxurious from the view point of this life. And yet I know I buy more and normally stuff I don't really need when I have a car. So, in just a small way, I'm feeling perplexed.
I love living in a much smaller apartment rather than our house in Seattle. We are together more because there are just fewer places to escape to, there is less to clean and really, how big of a house does one really need. And yet, I'm really looking forward to being in our big house.
And what if we love Seattle so much we don't want to return to Berlin? Of course we are all excited about another year here but what if? The honeymoon is over now. We are settled. We still love it but everything is no longer bright and sparkly and new and exciting the way it all was when we first arrived. What if there are things there we feel we don't want to leave... again. They say that repatriating is harder than expatriating. But what about this quasi- repatriating thing we will be doing?
Marty and I have talked extensively about all these feelings. It is a strange, wonderful and crazy place to be to have these options on where to live and where to call 'home' even if temporarily. We feel in a way, that we have trained and ran a marathon -this whole move to another country and figuring out the schools and the taxes and the grocery stores and Marty working his video job and his radio job from here... we were overwhelmed and exhausted a lot of the time but we did it and we feel like we did it really well but then what? There really isn't another marathon I want to run. It was like after I went Skydiving. It was awesome but I never want to do it again. Kind of like moving half way around the world. We did it. We don't really need to try to do it again and move to Singapore or somewhere completely different. I don't know the future but I can pretty assuredly say we will be living in Berlin or Seattle the rest of our lives. We love it here but we also loved it in Seattle. So what will the future hold.
Well, we are now back from our BBQs and going away parties and it reminded us of how cool Berlin is and how lovely our friends are here. Just adding more perplexity to an already perplexed head and heart filled with a lot of questions and feelings. Paths, so many of them. It is exciting but also overwhelming. I'm trying to just take it day by day and this day is nearly over. We fly out in a few short hours....Seattle or bust. Seems strange to say it. More from Seattle hopefully.
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