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I want my weekends back.
I want to be able to spend Saturday morning watching my kids play soccer and
chatting with my friends; or shopping; or getting my hair done. Not cleaning up
closets. I want to be able to lounge around in the evening and read a book
without falling unconscious after the third page – if I get to the book at all. I want to take it easy on Sunday morning
and sit down with a cup of coffee to read the Sunday papers; or spend the day
outdoors with my kids, without thinking about the chores awaiting me at home.

When did this happen? After another one of “those”
weekends I realise how much this impending move has taken over more than just
my weekends. It’s not that our weekends were ever a relaxed affair – by far not.
But never that bad. I want my life back.

When I talk (read:
complain) about it to my husband, he seems puzzled: why is there so much that I
have to do to prepare for the move? The movers will just “come, pack things up,
load them onto their truck, and unpack them when they get to Zurich. Simple,
really.” Really? Do I really want
the movers to pack up the broken china that we never could get ourselves to throw and is sitting in the back corner of our top kitchen cabinet? What about the
baby clothes that have outgrown even our youngest, but I have not yet gotten
around to give away? When I am in Zurich, am I going to be reading the “Economist”
magazines from three years ago that are gathering dust in the corner of my
study? Or are we going to be using the old photo printer that we bought together
with a camera that has long been replaced by a new one? You get the
picture.

Someone needs to do the
weeding out. I am that someone. I go room by room and discard. When I started
on the kids’ room, it took me almost three days to get out, after being buried
in boxes of Star Wars Legos; piles of papers, notes, magazines; random pieces
of puzzles whose origin nobody will ever know; and dozens of stuffed animals of
different sizes and species.

If it weren’t so
time-consuming and exhausting, I would say I actually enjoy the process. Simplifying
one’s life is a great feeling. But it’s brain-less work. Effectively doing
nothing but for weeks on end, I miss all
the other stuff. I miss the intellectual stimulation. I miss my real life. I
tell myself that it is only a couple more weeks until the actual move – but
then, of course, there’s the unpacking, which is a whole
different story…

It’s probably too late
by now, but I wonder if there is a better way to do this. Does moving take over
your life as well?

Every move deserves a proper goodbye. By proper, I
mean efficient (including the largest possible number of friends and
family) and in style – ideally with a farewell party attached
somewhere along the way.

In that context, one of my most important move-related
projects has been to organise our parting parties – all three of them, as each
of my two older children wanted to have their own (thankfully, the youngest one
doesn’t have any party-related demands yet). We are indulging them, I know, but
it is their first goodbye ever and we have decided to let them choose how they want
to say it. Coordinating three different dates, venues, guest lists and invitations
has been complicated to say the least, but not once in the process have I
considered not having those parties. Saying goodbye to “our”
people here, who have been part of our life for so many years and whom we are going
to miss, has been a given; well worth the logistical nightmare.

At the same time, I have been dreading the impact this
avalanche of goodbyes is bound to have on my – currently fragile – emotional
state. I remember my first farewell party. It was on the last day of school, at
the end of sixth grade, and many of my school friends were moving on to a
different (middle) school. I hosted the party in our garden, in Athens, on a
gorgeous June day. It was a big success, if success is measured by the number
of red-cheeked, sweaty, screaming 12-year-olds running around; their amount of
energy; and the loudness of their laughter. Until the first ones started
getting picked up. 

Then the mood changed, as if we suddenly remembered – as if it
came as a complete surprise – that this was the last we would see of each other
for a while, maybe ever. It did not matter that our new schools were not that far
from each other; in our limited-mobility universe of that time, effectively we would
be out of each other’s lives. There was a lot of hugging and tears and
consoling promises – a heart wrenching experience I remember very clearly, to
this day. I was so heartbroken, that my eyes felt like they were swollen for days.
Still, I had to be the one to throw the party; I wouldn’t have had it any other
way.

Why not? A good friend of mine asked me exactly that
the other day: if a going-away party is so painful, why not just skip it?

Because it would feel like I’m cheating. I would be
depriving myself – and others – of the opportunity to say goodbye. I need a
kind of closure so that I can move on – though closure sounds too final and
maybe is not the right word here. It is important for me to make sure that my loved
ones know that I am not going to disappear from their lives; that I am going to
miss them and be in touch and come back regularly. Pain is a given and it is part
of the process. If I don’t face it now, it is going to catch up with me at some
point anyway. So I might as well get it over with.

What is your take on going-away parties? Do you like small
and cosy ones, big glamorous affairs or prefer to avoid them altogether?

I should have seen it coming but I did not. I guess I
am not in Goodbye Mode yet – I don’t think any of us is. But it seems that the
dreaded process has begun.

This weekend, my daughter had a farewell party organised
in her honour by her schoolmates and their parents. She had been excited about
it for weeks. During the actual party she was in heaven, running and jumping –
or rather floating – around with her friends. This was the first party she has
had thrown in her honour and she was incredibly proud and happy. I was also very moved, especially by all the love and effort put into making this
happen. We all have busy lives after all.

As my larger-than-life little blond whirlwind danced
around the room, smiling and interacting with everyone, it was wonderful to see
how popular and loved she is, but I also could not help but feel a familiar pang
of sadness. I was sad for her – for having to say goodbye. Of course she would
make new friends in a flash – I knew that; but I also knew that she would miss
her current ones so much. I was also sad for myself, realising that the goodbye
process had officially kicked off. I am so not ready for this.

That evening, after the others were done with dinner,
my girl and I were left alone in the kitchen. I was busy clearing the table and
suddenly I realised that she was sobbing. She was not able to explain why, but when
I asked her whether it was because of her friends, she nodded. It all went
downhill from then on, because I started crying as well and, before you knew it, wet tissues were piling up on the floor. She looked at me a bit surprised – as in
“why on earth are you crying?”

I have read several books and articles on how to help
your kids cope with international moves and how to make
the transition smoother for them. I know the theory: while admitting that I am also a
bit sad – and therefore human –, as a parent, I have to show enough strength to
inspire confidence in them that everything will be all right. Breaking down
myself does not quite fit that model
of behavior. Still, I cannot bear to see another person – least of all a child
of mine – cry (yes, I’m a total softie), particularly when I share their
feelings completely. For the moment, I seem to have implementation issues
with that theory.

Moving alone is completely different from moving with another
person or persons. It’s not just the more complex logistics, but also all the
emotions involved; you always have to think about the impact yours have on others’.

Maybe I should have added a question mark to the title
of my post. This is not about how to be a tower of strength, which I obviously
am not; but if you have the answer, I’d love to hear it – ideally sooner
rather than later.

I walked from room to
room, smelling the air around me – mostly stale and humid (the house not having been opened for a while) with a hint of paint, as they were just beginning the painting job. The staircase handrail and steps were already covered with thick plastic
sheets to protect them from the invasion of white. I walked very carefully, to avoid
tipping over any of the stray pots of paint lying around. I was in Zurich,
visiting our new future home.

Armed with the floor plan, as I was naming each room
– the kids’ rooms, the guest room, my office –, I tried to imagine what every one
would look like. More important, I wanted to visualise what we would be like in them. This is not something
I’m good at – imagining the future appearance of currently empty spaces. I envy people who know exactly what they want, where they want it and
what the outcome will look like. Fully aware of my deficiency, I just wanted to
get a sense of whether this new place could feel like home.

What would it need to
feel like home?

It may sound superficial
to focus on the physical dimension when home can be so much more, but I believe
that the physical and emotional dimensions of home are closely connected. What
makes a house (or an apartment) a home? Some of it is already there – though
each of us may see it differently. Each space, each room has its vibe; it may
come from the light, the walls or a certain spaciousness or cosiness. Some
rooms are more inspiring than others – and what is inspiring for me may be
indifferent for someone else. For example, I entered our new living room and
could immediately (despite my deficiency) imagine myself in it, lounging around reading with my kids,
listening to music, or sharing meals with friends.

We can try to create some (or a
lot) of that vibe, as I wrote in a previous post. The problem is, it doesn’t
always work. Going around this house and figuring out how I feel about it made
me realise that I am missing that sense of comfort and homeliness in my current
place. I don’t feel comfortable and relaxed. I don’t have a favourite chair or
a favourite corner. I don’t invite many people over (even though I absolutely love
doing that) because I don’t feel that the space is welcoming.

I don’t think it is a
matter of spaciousness. I know families whose homes are smaller, yet
feel more welcoming to me. In fact, our new place is not significantly bigger
than the current one (though it has a garden!). It could be the amount of stuff that has accumulated and sometimes suffocates me. Or it could be that I did
not take the time to create that home when we moved in; I had a new-born and a
toddler to keep me busy or it just was not as important at the time. It was
more a matter of convenience, rearranging what was available, not paying
attention to detail. Maybe I saw this home as temporary – like the ones before
it; still with the mind-set of a student. Maybe I never made the
transition from student to grown-up home J. I’d like to do things differently this time.

As the tram rolled past
the glistening lakeshore on the one side and the impeccable, clean-cut designer
buildings on the other, I felt grateful to be witness to so much beauty, but I
also felt that familiar pang. The one I get when I need to function in a place I
don’t know; when I’m on my way somewhere but not really sure if it is the right
way or if it will get me there on time; when I’m convinced that everyone around me is staring, as I’m trying to figure out how something works. It’s the ultimate foreigner feeling –
and a feeling that I had better get used to since I am about to become a
foreigner once again.

My older son and I just
spent a weekend in Zurich. I was attending a long-planned (actually, before I
even knew we were moving to Switzerland) two-day Writers’ Workshop and thought
it would be a great opportunity for him to get another taste of the
city that will become his home by the end of the summer (for practical reasons, I
could only take one child with me and he won our unofficial “lottery”).

We have been to Zurich a
few times already, but always as tourists, visiting friends. This time we were
approaching it with a different perspective – that of the resident. As I was
sitting in the tram wondering if I would make it to the workshop’s opening
session on time – not doubting the unquestionable punctuality of Swiss public
transport, but my own orientation skills –, it occurred to me that I am not
looking forward to those first few days, weeks, months that are coming, when I will
be feeling my way around the unknown edges of my new life.

Whereas many people I
know would consider exploring and getting to know a new place an exciting
project, I would much rather have all the information already saved on my hard
disk (brain). Given how severely inept I am in matters of orientation, functioning
in new places is a challenge to say the least. I am relatively uncomfortable
with uncertainty in general, but geographical uncertainty is a big thing. Also,
I feel infinitely intellectually challenged when I don’t know how things work.
My degree of helplessness approaches that of a four-year-old child when I need to do things such as buy a
bus ticket or figure out where to validate it.

I don’t mind being a
foreigner – it has a certain charm, not to mention many advantages – but I like
to be the informed foreigner. I have decided that my way of confronting this
foreigner rite-of-passage is to surround myself with as many “locals” as
possible. Whether they are other (more experienced) foreigners or genuine
born-and-bred locals, these are people who can answer my (not-so-brilliant) questions
patiently and, if needed, take me by the hand and point me to the right direction
when I’m lost – figuratively or literally. This should help ease the growing pains J.

How do you deal with the
practical aspects “foreignness” when you have just moved to a new place? Is it
challenge or adventure for you?

Have a great week!