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It has been a little less than a month since my last
post, but it feels like at least three. So much has happened; so much to write
about. I will get to all that, but today is about new beginnings.

It is my first post from our new home, Zurich, and today
is the first day of school – the ultimate new beginning. The children have had
about a week to settle here – as much as that is possible in a week – and get
used to their new surroundings, before starting school. When we asked them, they
always claimed to be excited about it. They were good at hiding their
apprehension, even from themselves. At moments, I even thought that I should
take it a bit easier, since I was more daunted by this new beginning than they
were.

We arrived early at their new school this morning. Ours were the only new
kids in their respective classes. Even though everyone was friendly and
welcoming, I could not help feeling anxious about what they would have to go
through for the next few weeks of their adjustment period. Maybe this is the
exaggerated reaction of an introvert, but I have vivid memories of being the new
kid (I went to four kindergartens in two years, in two different countries and
languages) and they all involve feeling awkward – for being the odd one out – and
very alone. I would have liked to be able to spare them that initial phase and
fast-forward to the point where they have already made friends and are
completely comfortable in their new habitat.

As custom has it, we spent a few moments in each one
of the children’s classrooms, and as we turned to leave the Third Grade, our
daughter gave me this “please don’t leave me here yet” look, which filled me
with sadness. It makes no difference that I know that she will make friends and
be her usual popular self in no time; at that moment I was deeply moved because
I knew exactly how she felt – and I hated that feeling. Our son was better at camouflaging
his awkwardness with pre-teen annoyance, rolling his eyes at us when we were the only
parents waving goodbye from outside the classroom window – but I could tell that
he was as terrified. With him, I will have to get better at guesswork over the
next few weeks, since he is unlikely to volunteer any information relating to
his feelings.

By now it has become clear that I am a reluctant “new
beginner.” I am a comfort-zone-person. I like to stay with the familiar. Which is why I am happy that school has started. I am relieved that we will start getting
into a routine and get used to new routes and schedules. This may require me to get
out of that comfort zone for a little while, but I like to think of it as an actual comfort zone expansion – to include our new environment and our new life. That expanded comfort is part of what I need to feel at home and to help my children feel at
home as well. Today I made the first step. Well, I had to J.

How do you deal with new beginnings?

When I think of my time in Boston, I think of the openness and
friendliness of the people I met; the novelty of my first immersion in American
culture; but also being heartbroken from having left my loved ones behind for
the first time ever. My first impressions of Paris were the sumptuous food; elegance
combined with astonishing rudeness; and another first – consciously choosing a place to
live. In Los Angeles, the openness of the ocean gave
me a feeling of extreme freedom; but I also remember spending my first days intimidated
by the expectations I had to live up to by being there. Leiden meant getting
used to European dimensions again – a huge contrast of scale; the endless fields
of parked bicycles at the train station; and surviving the greyness of my first
September there. Finally, Vienna was the magnificent architecture; being reunited
with family; the bliss of being pregnant with my first son.

What will Zurich be?

There are certain standard things most people think of when they think of Switzerland – cleanliness,
order, natural beauty – but for me Zurich is
the City of Dark Suits. My first day there (as a resident) reminded me of New
York City hotel bars during Happy Hour. Going to Starbucks for my coffee every
morning, I thought I was on the set of “Men in Black:” I’ve never seen that
many suits in a Starbucks before. Then, sometime between five and six in the
afternoon, the streets filled up with men and women, sharply dressed, stylish,
sophisticated. Zurich, as I first saw it, is a city of elegant people, dressed
in black.

Then there is the other Zurich – the one that revolves
around our new home. All my adult life, I have lived in places that were practically
part of a city. This is the first time that I find myself in my own little
“hub” – apart. When I will think back to those first days in our new place, I
will remember how it slowly filled up with our stuff and started becoming a home. I will picture
us putting our books on the bookshelves, arranging our clothes in the wardrobes, hanging up our paintings. I will think of how the kids went crazy with their new garden,
spending most of their awake hours outside. I will recall our first meal in our new dining room with our first visitors, dear friends from Vienna, who came to help us unpack.

A lot will change with time, including what I think of
most of these first impressions, but I cherish them nevertheless. They are part
of my history. They are part of me.

Would love to hear about your own first impressions.

Coming home always feels like entering a parallel
universe. Real life stops. In fact, it is as if that particular real life
never existed. Routines and to-dos are forgotten. It is not exactly like being on
vacation; I just have a hard time remembering all the things that I’m supposed
to be doing – and therefore doing them.

Being in this parallel universe has its advantages. It helps me
realise that the world does not collapse when I don’t check off items on my to-do
list on a daily basis. It also allows me to take some distance and reflect on what
has happened in my life. The move was such a whirlwind of activity, stress and
intensity of emotions, that I did not have the chance to take time and think
about the implications or deal with my feelings about it – not that I had any desire to do that. Now, the idleness and complete change of scenery is somehow
forcing me to it. After several killer weeks without a break, suddenly I find
myself with plenty of time to exhale – and think.

I am thinking about surviving goodbyes. The farewell
party galore of our last week in Vienna was quite an experience. We survived
every single one of those parties; not with flying colours, but at least we made
it through. What I found strange is that none of us shed a single tear (even
if, on several occasions, I came close). I was particularly surprised by the
kids: there was a certain air of sadness on their faces after each party, but
no intense reaction; just silence. I tried to make them talk and maybe bring
out some tear-release, but the only thing I managed was to release my own tears
(thinking about my children’s predicament
makes me much sadder than thinking about my own) and have my children
– my daughter in particular – look at me with
compassion and quite a bit of surprise.

The few days we spent
in Zurich were not much different in terms of getting any reactions out of them.
They were so excited with their new home – their rooms, the garden – that they were too busy to think about what they left behind. We were all too
occupied with unpacking and settling in to start any difficult conversations.

Now that we are away
from all that – the goodbyes, the farewell presents, the exchange of emails and
Skype addresses, the unpacking and settling-in – they start to
process what happened. They mention the move and our new life in Zurich almost
on a daily basis. It is dawning on them
that the move is not reversible, at least not in the short term. My daughter
told me yesterday, while we were at the playground, that Zurich is nice, but she
wants to be living in Vienna and we should move back.

I try to explain that
it is not possible to do that; that not only have we made a commitment to this
new life, but that it is exciting and full of possibilities and opportunities
to make new friends. Also, I tell them what I told my friends during that “week
of farewells,” which is what helped me survive it: I do not
believe in goodbyes. Our friendship bonds are too deep and too strong to be threatened by this
move, or any move, which is why it does not daunt me. I will not be able to talk to or see
my best friends whenever I feel like it – and I will hate it – but I know that they
will always be there for me and I for them. That should count for something.

This is what I would like to be doing right now. Beats
trying to pack up and move a family of three, while living in the big sauna that
is Vienna these days. For some reason, air conditioning never caught on here. As
the thermometer rises, yet again, above my liveability threshold of 30 degrees
Celsius and sweat is dripping down my forehead, while I am closing and labelling
the last box, I am dreaming of sandy beaches, ice-cold cocktails and, yes, air conditioning.

Moving is a surreal experience. Watching all the
things that make up our life here disappear from around us one by one with
every day that passes feels strange – to say the least. Every day we
learned to live with less: today it’s the couch; tomorrow the cupboards; oops,
our beds are gone. It’s the first move that takes so long (we have so much
stuff, that it requires four days, four professional movers and myself, all working
full-time), which I guess allows us more time to “digest” what is happening.

It is not as bad as I thought it would be. I was
expecting to be devastated by the physical move and I am not. One reason is
that it is not the apartment that makes home for me – it is everyone and everything in it. Once all that is gone, there is nothing keeping me there. More
than the physical space where we lived, I am going to miss our neighbourhood – my
neighbours; the people I interacted with on a daily basis at the shops, the
post office, the cafés; the familiar faces on the playground. I’m going to miss
feeling part of a community. Isn’t it ironic that I would come to appreciate
the “smallness” of Vienna – one of the things that bothered me the most when I
moved here.

Also, I was expecting the children to be disturbed or
at least disoriented. From what I can tell, that has not happened either. They
seem to be easy going, relaxed, even cheerful. Even the tiniest one did not
seem disturbed that his bed and his toys suddenly vanished. In fact, the three of them have been having fun discovering all sorts of little “treasures” – things that
they have been looking for, for years – that have emerged from behind different
pieces of furniture J.

So it’s done now. There is nothing left in our
apartment but dust – a lot of it. This morning I walked through it, hearing my
voice echoing against the empty walls and thinking back to how I felt
seven-and-half years ago when we moved in; how much my life has changed since
then. I was proud of myself, even a bit surprised that I didn’t get emotional while
doing that. Well. As I am sitting, probably for the last time, at “my” corner
café, writing these lines, suddenly I have to put on my sunglasses. “It” is
catching up with me. Phew, I’m normal after all.

If you are among those who passed by me today,
sitting here, and said hello and wondered about my red nose and wet cheeks, do
not worry. I’m OK; just dealing with something long overdue.

How do you feel about moves – the actual process of
packing up your belongings? Do you get emotional?

“So, are you excited about the move?” That is a question
I have been getting almost every day since we announced that we are moving – and I find it awkward every single time (those of you who have
asked, please don’t be offended; this is me, not you). Every time I get this
question, I pause. The reason I find it awkward is that I don’t really know how
to answer it. If I say “No” – which I usually do – I risk sounding spoiled and
ungrateful.  I am moving to Zurich, after
all – the city that has been ranking consistently among the top three highest-quality-of-life
cities worldwide – in a spectacularly
beautiful country where everything works to perfection; not to a less-developed
one in the middle of nowhere. If I say “Yes,” I feel like a traitor; I’m
betraying all my dear friends here in Vienna, whom I am going to miss terribly.
How could I possibly be excited about closing this chapter of my life, leaving
them behind and moving on to a new adventure?

A few days ago, a friend of mine commented on how cheerful
I look, indicating – in her mind – that I am reconciled with the idea of moving
and looking forward to it. That could not be further from the truth. I am
not only not reconciled, I have not
even begun the process of
reconciliation. To answer the original question, I am neither excited nor
un-excited; I’m just not “there” yet.

For weeks now, my days have been crammed with so much
logistics and preparation that my brain has been on autopilot – my emotional
brain, that is. I have not had time to digest and internalise the reality of
the move and what it means to me emotionally, least of all admit that it is just
around the corner. With hardly two more weeks of Vienna left and only one week
until the movers come and pack up my life and take it away from the place where
I have lived it for the past eleven years, I am only now starting to do the
math.

I have been and still am in complete, absolute denial
– of what is about to happen and of how much it’s going to hurt. When there is
the certainty of impending pain on the horizon, isn’t evasion a perfectly
normal human reaction? Still, the rational me acknowledges that, even though I
may try to avoid it, pain is a given that will eventually catch up with me. My
choice is either to go through it now, while I am still here with my loved ones,
or wait until it catches up with me when I am away – alone.

I can’t tell you
yet which side of me will win – the emotional or the rational – but so far the
latter is making a point of not missing any of those goodbye coffees, brunches,
lunches, drinks and dinners, not to mention the family parties, which are
piling up on my agenda for these last two weeks. That should help. Let the floodgates
open J.