Six Months Later

Today is the first day of spring, thanks to Google's doodle for alerting me to that this morning.  Today has been bright and sunny and beautifully springlike, but that isn't the only thing that has made today special for me.  Six months ago I stepped on a plane with two suitcases to start my life over here.  It seems like so much and nothing has happened in that time, I spent a very long time waiting to get my forms sorted from the UK so I could get my Health Insurance, my Freizügigkeitsbescheinigung and most importantly start my Integration course with the VHS.

The first few months and Christmas were very exciting but with the new year my high started to come down and I really struggled with my motivation.  I entered "that" phase that as far as I can tell all ex-pats do from time to time.  Temperatures of down to -18°c didn't really help things as going outside wasn't really something I wanted to do. I was left feeling isolated and alone at home during the day, surrounded by language that I frustratingly couldn't understand.

I knew things would get better, and they have. I started my Deutschkurs in February and on Friday I will have finished the first module.  I have made friends and even had a very pleasant lunch and shopping trip with a girl from Azerbaizjan who speaks no English.  Last weekend we took a trip over the boarder to Strasbourg where I took lots of photos and realised that the 8 years I spent learning French at school has been overwritten German words.  The Sun has been shining, the days are getting longer and the birds are singing everyday. I always knew that moving here would be hard at times but I absolutely made the right choice by coming here.

The First Goodbye

On Thursday evening as it would have been our normal evening for a German class most of us got together for our usual end of term curry.  The food and conversation were flowing freely and Rosa our teacher managed to charm the waiters into giving her one of the gorgeous wine glasses they had.  At the end of the meal a fuss was made over my leaving, which was quite sad as we have been together learning for about 2 years and these were some of the first people I had social interaction with after my breakdown and they have helped me grow so much.  Oddly the class is pretty much all men apart from Mum and me, I say oddly because I have done quite a number of evening classes over the years and women have always made up the majority.  I'm not sure if that is related but they have also been the best people I have taken classes with, which is why I extended an invitation for them to look me up if they happen to find themselves in Stuttgart and was even more pleased when they immediately started planning a class trip to see me some time next year lol.

I got a lot of hugs goodbye and felt very special... unlike my Mum who spent all of Friday being sick which she is attributing directly to the food she ate =P

So this means we're grown ups now...

On Saturday morning I found out that one of my best friends from school is getting divorced after being together for 15 years.  They are the first people I know of my age to go through it and unfortunately it isn't going to be amicable.  He cheated on her with someone else we were at school with, her part in this doesn't surprise me as she was only interested in attached guys even back then, once she had them she didn't want them, so the soon to be ex will hopefully be in for a lovely surprise when she gets bored and he finds himself alone.  However he has emptied their bank account without a thought for how my friend will provide for their child and is sending threatening e-mails, I fail to see it from his point of view at all and believe he is probably being manipulated into doing it.  What I find worse is that he was absolutely appalled by the similar behaviour carried out by his father on leaving his mother, so I add hypocrite to the list of smaller more Anglo-Saxonesque words I have taken to referring to him as.

A quieter more secret part of me is pleased he is gone. I think my friend was always too good for him, and although it is all too raw for me to say it to her right now she will meet someone far better, having a little fun along the way road-testing - if you catch my drift ;)  Myself I have had many break-ups in the past to know that the feeling that no one will ever find you attractive again is not true, and I know that the pain gets less with every passing day, that I am better without every one of them, but 15 years of being with the same person, the person you promised "'til death do us part." I cannot imagine the pain.  Then there is the practical stuff that needs to be sorted, the legal things, the day to day things, the question of who gets what and on top of that carrying on and putting a brave face on for her son, when I am sure all she wants to do is stay in bed and eat cheesecake for a week.

My own parents have now been divorced for almost twice the amount of time they were married.  The first time he left - which incidentally was for a woman that shares the name of the husband stealer above, a woman that also stole the husband of my step-mum in an unrelated event - he came back home a short while later, by that time my Mum had accepted it was over, realised they were better apart and they split for good. They remained amicable and neither ever tried to turn me or my brother against the other, of course there were the odd irritated grumbles, but they'd be there even if they were still married.  The funny thing is that I find it quite alien to think that they could have ever been dating let alone married for 14 years with 2 kids, but I suppose that is down to them divorcing when I was 5 and spending the past 27 years getting to know them individually.

Ironically Saturday was also the day that my teenage crush got married, we had one of those Joey & Dawson things going on for a while and I was convinced we'd end up together and although we had moments of shared teenage fumblings we never did.  I haven't seen him since last millennium (haha how old does that make us sound?) and I have no interest in seeing him, but still it felt a little bit odd.  I do however wish him as much luck and happiness and hope that his new wife is every bit as amazing as my beautiful boyfriend.