It’s been one year, three months since I moved from NY to Germany.
15 whole months. The worst and hardest months of my life.
Imagine having a happy, fulfilling life in a city you love with a career you love and friends you love. A bunch of places where everyone knows you and remembers your name and smiles when you stop in. Your family is an afternoon’s drive away. Everything is easy, everything in your heart feels warm and sunny.
Then suddenly you get the opportunity to move to Europe, to Germany, to a little walkable city. It’s a dream come true. You’ll be living the life you’ve always fantasized about.
And then you get there. And it was hard. But you did it.
And then your dad gets cancer so you fly across the ocean.
And you come back to Germany, where you have no friends, no one that smiles when you walk in to a shop. No one to ask how you’re doing.
And then your dad refuses medical care and you fly across the ocean
And the guy at the coffee shop down the street remembers your order every day, every day of the worst week of your life.
And then your dad dies.
And everyone is there for you.
And then you fly across the ocean.
And no one is there for you.
And you can barely communicate with the guy at the coffee shop.
And you’re off your pills because you don’t understand a foreign medical system. The healthcare being good doesn’t matter when you don’t know how to use it.
And then the months pass, and you’re alone, and you’re isolated, and you google easiest ways to k!ll yourself but jumping seems scary and you can’t buy any fun pills here. There is a tea for every ailment except the hole in your heart.
And then it’s the holidays, so you fly across the ocean. And it feels better. But the holidays end.
And then the months pass. And you’re alone. And you have dozens of unread messages but it’s too much to think about, so you don’t look at them. And you try, but you just can’t grasp the language, so every day is hello, thank you, goodbye.
And you’ve walked every inch of your walkable city, and it’s honestly a bit overrated.
And you try to make friends, but nothing feels the way it used to.
And then it’s been long enough to justify it, so you book a flight across the ocean.
And all you want is the coffee shop guy that remembers your order, and the thrift store cashier that puts clothes aside for you, and the girl at the grocery store that compliments your outfit. And your friends. And your family.
But your dad is dead.
And no one is the same.
And life will never be what it was 16 months ago.
It’s always after.
