This morning, six weeks after moving to Germany — and after years of wanting this to be my reality — I marveled that I’m here. This happened.
My husband and I came back a few days ago from a trip to see his family in Tunisia; though we saw ancient ruins and the ocean and had a wonderful visit, the most magical part was coming home. We live together. This is our everyday life.
It still feels like vacation.
Familiarity is comfortable and change, no matter what it looks like, is unbearably hard.
Earlier this month, I said goodbye to an apartment I loved deeply, a safe space that was home to me for longer than any other place before it. (And look at that light!) This is the first place that I settled into and made my own. I celebrated my 30th birthday here. It was my cats’ first home, and where I honed my artistic style. While living in this apartment, I made friendships that will last a lifetime; I found my center and my self worth. This space saw me through the pandemic, through anguish and big joys, and I grew more here in the past five years than in all the years prior.
Before leaving, I worked for days alongside my mom and best friend, running on adrenaline, sorting through and clearing out a literal decades’ worth of things. We scrubbed and painted. We sold my car.
I kept little, but I’m grateful that so many of my things, curated with love, now live in my friends’ and family’s homes.
When the space was empty, we drove to the airport with my two cats. And after 14+ hours of travel, my mom and I arrived at in Cologne, Germany, and I was reunited with my husband.
My mom went home yesterday. It’s been a little over a week since we left Baltimore, and I am still acclimating to the time difference and processing all the change that’s happened and all the change to come.
And yes, while I’m thrilled to finally be here, it has also been immeasurably hard. But we are resilient, even when things are uncertain, even when we take a big leap outside of what is familiar. And through all this change, I’ll learn that home is anywhere there’s a sense of belonging — and vice versa.
Time flies. Very soon, I’ll be living in Germany.
I’ve spent the last several months purging, going through a lifetime of papers, art supplies, trinkets, and things put in closets years ago and long forgotten about. Taking multiple trips to the donation center. Giving away beloved items, thrilled that many of them will have a new home with family and friends. Shedding so many old things, and making room for the new.
I got my first tattoos with two humans I love dearly, mementos to remind me of the community that is here for me, forever.
I can’t help but think, often, of Jonny Sun‘s book Goodbye, Again, where he writes so beautifully about life and transitions and joy and heartbreak. One quote, about how many final goodbyes we have already said, sticks with me — though my copy is currently already at my new home and I can’t find the exact words. But he’s also written that “goodbyes are doorways, never doors,” and I’m holding on to that, too.
It’s been incredibly bittersweet.
